/c.  /<?.  23  . 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 

Presented  by 

oHcn  \A\W  \cArn  cIenn\^G!^"Sruan , 


E  664  . B87  W7 
Williams,  Wayne  C.  1878- 
1953. 

William  Jennings  Bryan 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/williamjenningsbOOwill 


William  Jennings  Bryan 


Hon.  William  Jennings  Bryan 

(Photograph  of  portrait  painted  for  the  State  Department  by  Irving  G.  Wiles 
of  New  York.  It  represents  Mr.  Bryan  in  the  act  of  presenting  to  for¬ 
eign  Ambassadors  and  Ministers  his  peace  plan,  which  is  now  embodied 
in  thirty  peace  treaties  with  nations  exercising  authority  over  three-fourths 
of  the  population  of  the  world.) 


William  Jennings  Bryan 


A  Study  in  Political  Vindication 


WAYNE  C.  WILLIAMS 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London :  2 1  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :  75  Princes  Street 


To  the  Memory 

of 

MY  FA  THER 


Who  Taught  Me  the  Meaning 
of  Democracy 


/ 


Foreword 

THIS  book  is  not  intended  as  a  biography 
of  its  subject — William  Jennings  Bryan. 
While  it  covers  his  public  career  and  is, 
therefore,  partly  biographical,  it  is  written  with 
a  distinct  purpose — to  prove  that  events  have  vin¬ 
dicated  his  views  and  principles. 

Mr.  Bryan  would  be  the  last  to  claim  undue 
credit  for  the  triumph  of  the  great  reforms  in 
which  he  has  been  interested ;  he  has  always  been 
most  generous  in  praise  of  others  who  have  fought 
with  him  for  cherished  principles,  showing  a 
commendable  anxiety  to  see  his  principles  triumph 
rather  than  himself  exalted. 

No  other  man  in  American  public  life  has  ever 
lived  to  see  so  many  of  his  ideas  and  reforms  ac¬ 
cepted  by  his  political  opponents  and  the  people 
at  large  and  established  in  the  fundamental  law 
and  institutions  of  the  land  as  has  Mr.  Bryan. 
And  no  other  political  leader  in  American  politics 
(possibly  in  the  world)  has  ever  stood  such  a 
storm  of  criticism  or  survived  such  vigorous  at¬ 
tacks  as  has  the  subject  of  this  book.  The  as¬ 
tonishing  political  vitality  of  Mr.  Bryan  deserves 
careful  study. 

It  has  been  the  unhappy  lot  of  most  men  who 
seek  reform  either  to  be  laughed  off  the  stage  or 
die  full  of  disappointment  over  the  failure  of  their 

7 


8 


FOREWORD 


fellow-men  to  see  the  thing  which  they  had  seen. 
History  is  filled  with  leaders  who,  too'  far  in  ad¬ 
vance  of  their  time,  were  crucified  by  their  own 
generation  and  immortalized  by  succeeding  genera¬ 
tions. 

But  this  disappointment  has  not  come  to  Mr. 
Bryan,  for  he  has  seen  his  ideas  embodied  in  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  land;  his  personality 
grow  with  his  own  generation;  his  principles  be¬ 
come  more  and  more  popular  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  This  is  due  in  part  to  his  early  entrance 
into  the  place  of  greatest  prominence  in  our  na¬ 
tional  life ;  to  the  rapidity  and^extent  of  our  mod¬ 
ern  means  of  communication,  to  the  power  of  his 
eloquence  and  the  faith  in  his  inherent  honesty  of 
purpose  and  deep  sincerity  of  conviction. 

Most  men  in  America  enter  on  the  stage  of 
public  life  too  late  to  see  their  ideas  reach  ma¬ 
turity  and  fruition  in  their  own  time. 

Time  is  the  great  adjuster,  proving  and  testing 
men  and  issues  in  a  crucible  that  is  infallible.  The 
man  and  the  issue  of  the  hour  live  but  for  a  day; 
only  the  eternal  principles  of  right  and  justice 
abide  and  endure. 

“  A  man  is  an  atom ;  he  is  bom,  he  acts  and 
dies;  but  principles  are  eternal,”  said  Mr.  Bryan 
in  one  of  his  Convention  speeches  and  it  is  the 
great  fundamentals  of  human  welfare  that  alone 
can  stand  the  test  of  time. 


Denver ,  Colorado. 


w.  c.  w. 


Contents 


I. 

Democracy’s  Lawgiver 

•  • 

II 

II. 

World  Conquest  and  World  War  . 

18 

III. 

The  Trusts 

•  • 

38 

IV. 

A  Democratic  View  of  Roosevelt  . 

49 

V. 

World  Peace  . 

•  • 

64 

VI. 

Monetary  Reform 

0  • 

77 

VII. 

Four  Great  Reforms 

•  • 

9i 

VIII. 

The  Bryan  of  To-morrow  . 

•  • 

hi 

9 


“  Of  what  a  statesman  may  be  responsible 
for  I  allow  the  utmost  scrutiny ;  I  deprecate  it 
not.  What  are  his  functions  ?  To  observe 
things  in  the  beginning,  to  foresee  and  foretell 
them  to  others — this  I  have  done.” 

— Demosthenes  “  Oration  on  the  Crozon.” 


I 


DEMOCRACY’S  LAWGIVER 

FROM  July  9,  1896,  to  1916  and  almost  to 
the  present  hour,  William  Jennings  Bryan 
has  been  the  leader  of  the  Democratic 
party  and  from  1896  to  1912  its  sole  leader. 
As  leader  and  candidate  in  three  presidential  cam¬ 
paigns;  as  the  arbiter  of  the  other  three  cam¬ 
paigns;  as  the  writer  of  four  of  its  six  platforms; 
and  as  the  directing  spirit  of  at  least  one  of  the 
remaining  two  platforms,  we  may  well  seek  to 
comprehend  the  compelling  influence  of  this  man 
upon  the  political  life  of  his  generation. 

Excepting  only  Henry  Clay,  he  has  led  his  party 
longer  than  any  other  man  in  American  public 
life.  For  an  entire  generation  his  ideas  have  domi¬ 
nated  Democratic  councils  and  inspired  Demo¬ 
cratic  platforms.  Thrice  defeated,  consigned  to 
oblivion  on  numerous  occasions,  politically  buried 
at  a  score  of  funerals,  he  yet  manifests  an  aston¬ 
ishing  political  vitality  that  awaits  explanation. 

The  Presidency  could  offer  Mr.  Bryan  but  few 
attractions  compared  with  the  exalted  platform 
from  which  he  now  influences  public  life.  Why 
should  a  leader  of  public  opinion,  whose  record 
is  almost  without  a  parallel,  exchange  this  sure 


ii 


12 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


record  of  triumphs  for  the  uncertainties  of  the 
Presidency  where  the  blunder  of  a  single  subordi¬ 
nate  or  a  mistake  in  the  choice  of  a  single  official 
might  mar  the  record  ? 

Why  change  the  prestige  of  a  Henry  Clay  for 
the  empty  honours  of  a  Millard  Fillmore?  Who 
has  a  real  place  in  American  history — Daniel  Web¬ 
ster  or  John  Tyler?  Of  course,  Bryan  would  not 
be  a  Fillmore  or  a  Tyler,  but  I  mention  these 
names  to  show  that  of  itself  the  Presidency  brings 
neither  lasting  fame  nor  personal  happiness.  To 
desire  the  Presidency  for  solid  achievement,  for 
results — that  is  worth  while;  but  to  desire  it  for 
mere  glory  or  fame,  just  to  be  pointed  out  or 
deferred  to — that  is  quite  a  different  thing. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  Bryan 
leadership  is  not  even  the  fact  of  that  leadership, 
unprecedented  as  that  may  be.  The  remarkable 
tiling  is  the  vindication  of  the  Bryan  views  and 
policies.  Probably  no  other  man  in  history  has 
advocated  so  wide  a  program  and  then  lived  to  see 
his  principles  receive  such  universal  approval  and 
adoption  as  has  Mr.  Bryan. 

Certainly,  this  is  not  true  of  any  other  political 
leader  who  has  had  to  depend  upon  public  opinion 
and  the  votes  of  self-governing  peoples  to  carry  out 
his  ideas.  A  monarch  of  the  old,  autocratic  days 
might  acquire  an  idea  some  fine  morning  and  put  it 
into  power  before  night  by  imperial  decree,  but  in 
a  democracy,  a  leader  must  impress  his  ideas  upon 
men  only  by  reason  and  persuasion  and  by  the  force 
and  value  of  those  ideas. 


DEMOCRACY’S  LAWGIVER 


13 


Unless  his  principles  commend  themselves  to 
those  who  listen  to  him,  he  has  no  following  and 
cannot  realize  achievement  by  having  those  prin¬ 
ciples  become  law.  Mr.  Bryan  on  the  public  plat¬ 
form,  reasoning  and  pleading  with  his  fellow-men 
for  great  ideals  of  government  and  humanity  forms 
the  true  measure  of  the  political  advances  of  this 
generation,  the  climax  of  democracy  in  govern¬ 
ment. 

As  a  background  for  the  claim  that  Bryan  has 
been  vindicated  in  his  views,  let  us  first  examine 
what  his  views  are  and  see  how  they  have  been 
accepted  by  his  party.  Mr.  Bryan  joined  in  writing 
the  Democratic  platform  of  1896.  He  was  di¬ 
rectly  responsible  for  the  platforms  of  1900  and 
1908,  on  which  he  again  ran  for  the  Presidency. 
He  materially  assisted  in  framing  the  platform  of 
1904. 

He  helped  to  write  the  platform  of  1912  on 
which  Mr.  Wilson  successfully  ran  for  the  Presi¬ 
dency;  many  of  his  ideas  were  written  into  that 
platform  and  the  platform  of  1916.  We  are  not 
now  speaking  of  governmental  measures  and 
policies  and  laws.  We  are  speaking  of  the  giver  of 
law  to  the  Democratic  party.  A  consideration  of 
the  governmental  measures  which  represent  the 
Bryan  ideas  will  come  later.  The  Chicago  plat¬ 
form  of  1896  contained  the  following  planks: 

1.  Bimetallism. 

2.  Tariff  for  revenue  only. 

3.  Income  tax. 


14 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


4.  No  importation  of  pauper  labour. 

5.  Arbitration  of  disputes  of  interstate  rail¬ 
way  employees. 

6.  Enlargement  of  powers  of  interstate 
commerce  commission;  enlarged  control 
of  railroads. 

7.  Opposition  tO'  government  by  injunction. 

8.  Monroe  doctrine  to  be  maintained. 

9.  No  third  term  in  the  presidential  office. 

10.  Fixed  term  in  civil  service. 

11.  Federal  government  to  improve  the 
Mississippi  River  and  internal  water¬ 
ways. 

These  principles  and  planks  will  repay  careful 
study.  Aside  from  the  Civil  Service  plank,  they 
have  all  been  adopted  or  realized  in  substance,  and 
time  in  some  manner  or  another  has  vindicated 
them. 

Bimetallism  never  did  have  so  great  a  vindica¬ 
tion  as  at  that  hour  in  world  commerce ;  when  the 
gold  dollar  became  a  fifty-cent  dollar,  nations  were 
clamouring  for  silver.  The  Federal  Reserve  Act, 
to  the  passing  of  which  Bryan  contributed  so  much, 
destroyed  the  grip  of  Wall  Street  financiers  on 
the  currency  of  the  nation. 

Tariff  for  revenue  only  has  been  the  law  of  the 
land.  The  income  tax  is  in  force.  Bryan  fought 
for  it  actively  from  1894  to  1913.  It  is  significant 
that  Mr.  Bryan  had  to  fight  the  battle  for  an  in¬ 
come  tax  practically  alone,  and  that  for  twenty-one 
jears  he  led  the  fight  for  the  amendment  for  elec- 


DEMOCRACY’S  LAWGIVER 


15 


tion  of  Senators  by  the  people.  While  Bryan  held 
his  party  in  line,  very  largely,  for  these  two  popu¬ 
lar  amendments  he  had  the  bitter  opposition  of 
conservatives  in  both  parties  and  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  party  as  a  whole.  Taft  was  against  the  in¬ 
come  tax  amendment,  finally  advocating  it  when 
Congress  submitted  it,  but  urging  that  it  never  be 
used  except  in  an  emergency.  During  his  term 
President  Roosevelt  never  came  out  for  it,  except 
indirectly.  In  his  speech  of  acceptance  in  1908 
Taft  came  out  against  an  income  tax.  Roosevelt 
never  favoured  popular  election  of  Senators  until 
1910,  and  indeed  did  but  little  to  aid  that  amend¬ 
ment.  The  income  tax  amendment  was  ratified 
and  the  proclamation  signed  by  Secretary  Knox  in 
1913,  a  few  weeks  before  Mr.  Bryan  became  Sec¬ 
retary  of  State  and  Bryan  himself  signed  the 
proclamation  for  the  popular  election  of  Senators 
amendment  shortly  after  he  took  office. 

Neither  Mr.  Plughes  nor  Mr.  Harding  favoured 
the  income  tax  amendment,  Hughes  strenuously 
opposing  it  as  Governor  of  New  York. 

America  is  paying  the  penalty  at  this  hour  for 
the  importation  of  pauper  labour. 

If  we  had  had  a  law  for  the  arbitration  of  rail¬ 
way  wage  disputes,  the  Adamson  law  and  its  at¬ 
tendant  crisis  would  never  have  confronted 
America,  and  in  the  great  industrial  crisis  loom¬ 
ing  before  the  government  the  United  States  has 
no  law  to  meet  it. 

Enlarging  the  powers  of  the  interstate  com¬ 
merce  commission:  the  great  fight  of  President 


16 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


Roosevelt  in  1905  and  1906  was  over  this  very 
question  and  Roosevelt  was  Bryan's  most  bitter 
opponent  in  1896,  and  Bryan  was  Roosevelt’s  most 
valuable  aid  in  securing  it. 

Shall  we  enlarge  governmental  control  of  the 
railroads?  Unquestionably  it  will  be  further  en¬ 
larged,  even  the  most  hardened  reactionary  ad¬ 
mits.  The  only  difference  of  opinion  is  as  to  what 
form  future  governmental  control  will  assume. 

Government  by  injunction  has  been  curbed  by 
law.  Can  any  one  recall  the  fierce  and  bitter  storm 
of  criticism  that  broke  over  the  head  of  Bryan  in 
1896  for  this  reform  which  is  now  a  part  of  the 
law  of  the  land?  Yet,  in  the  September  number 
of  the  Review  of  Reviews,  1896,  Roosevelt  said: 
“  The  men  who  object  to  what  they  style  4  govern¬ 
ment  by  injunction  ’  are  as  regards  the  essential 
principles  of  government  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
their  remote,  skin-clad  ancestors  who  lived  in  caves 
and  fought  one  another  with  stone-headed  axes, 
and  ate  the  mammoth,  woolly  rhinoceros.” 

In  1900,  the  Bryan  platform  had  a  plank  de¬ 
manding  a  new  currency  law,  and  we  secured  it 
in  1914.  It  declared  for  a  department  of  labour 
in  the  Cabinet  (the  first  platform  demand  of  the 
kind  made  by  a  prominent  party)  and  a  union 
man  bearing  a  union  card  sits  in  the  Cabinet  with 
the  President  in  Washington  at  this  hour.  It  de¬ 
clared  for  an  inter-oceanic  canal. 

It  declared  for  storing  water  to  irrigate  and  im¬ 
prove  the  arid  lands  of  the  West,  the  forerunner 
of  the  great  reclamation  project.  It  declared 


DEMOCRACY’S  LAWGIVER 


17 


against  ship  subsidies,  a  position  from  which  the 
nation  has  not  retreated. 

When  we  add  to  these  substantial  achievements 
the  successful  Bryan  fight  for  campaign  publicity 
before  elections,  for  initiative  and  referendum,  and 
his  aid  in  the  movement  for  a  child  labour  law, 
we  have  a  substantial  program  to  command  the 
attention  of  the  men  who  must  write  the  political 
history  of  this  generation.  Here  is  credit  enough 
for  any  single  life,  but  the  main  chapters  are  yet 
to  be  written. 

The  great  achievements  have  not  been  re¬ 
counted.  Between  1896  and  1902,  new  issues  were 
thrust  upon  the  country.  The  issues  of  the  trusts 
and  imperialism,  the  serious  problem  of  colonial 
expansion.  Upon  these  two  issues  Mr.  Bryan  took 
advanced  and  decisive  ground,  and  upon  them  he 
has  received  his  greatest  vindication. 


II 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR 

WE  come  now  to  the  most  important  epoch 
in  Mr.  Bryan’s  life — the  influence  of 
his  views  and  his  career  upon  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  imperialism.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  the  issue  of  imperialism  was  a  personal  issue 
with  Mr.  Bryan.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
there  would  have  been  no  issue  had  he  not  raised 
it  or  that  no  one  else  would  have  been  found  fight¬ 
ing  on  his  side  of  the  question,  because  many  able 
men  took  the  same  view  but  no  outstanding  Ameri¬ 
can  political  leader  took  a  stand  upon  the  issue 
until  Mr.  Bryan  had  spoken;  and  he  alone  pos¬ 
sessed  the  influence  and  driving  power  to  accom¬ 
plish  what  he  did  accomplish  in  the  solution  of  this 
question.  Whether  we  measure  the  issue  of  im¬ 
perialism  by  the  interest  it  aroused,  or  by  the 
permanency  of  its  influence  upon  the  life  of  na¬ 
tions  or  by  its  effect  upon  the  destinies  of  peoples; 
no  matter  how  we  look  at  this  grave  question,  it 
becomes  a  critical  issue  of  the  ages  when  consid¬ 
ered  in  its  widest  implications.  For  the  issue  in¬ 
volves  a  nation’s  entire  attitude  toward  all  other 
nations;  it  comprehends  the  whole  national  mo¬ 
tive,  purpose  and  impulse. 

What  are  nations  for?  Why  have  peoples 

18 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  19 


erected  governments?  Do  they  exist  to  prey  on 
other  nations?  Must  the  weak  submit  to  the 
strong?  Do-  larger  nations  have  some  inherent 
right  in  their  process  of  growth  and  expansion  to 
overrun  and  terrorize  and  subdue  weaker  nations? 
Is  there  any  moral  law  governing  them,  such  as 
governs  and  controls  individuals?  Is  a  state  con¬ 
trolled  by  God’s  laws  in  a  way  that  a  human  being 
is  controlled  by  them? 

These  are  far-reaching  questions.  They  con¬ 
cern  the  ultimate  destiny  of  mankind  and  of 
government.  They  were  vitally  involved  in  the 
great  struggle  out  of  which  we  are  just  emerging. 

Measured  by  these  standards,  then,  we  say  that 
the  issue  of  imperialism  as  it  was  raised  in 
America  by  William  Jennings  Bryan  is  the  great¬ 
est  issue  to  which  his  career  has  ever  been  related, 
and  represents  in  its  widest  implications  the  great 
issue  that  confronts  all  nations  for  all  time. 

Let  us  stand  on  clear  ground.  What  do  we 
mean  by  imperialism?  The  technical  definition  of 
imperialism  as  related  to  America’s  entrance  upon 
that  policy  is:  The  government  of  alien  colonies  by 
the  United  States  outside  of  the  Constitution. 
Stated  in  its  wider  aspects,  imperialism  is  “  the 
conquest  or  subjugation  of  one  nation  by  another 
through  militaristic  force.” 

This  is  the  issue  which  was  raised  by  the  great 
war  and  the  two  are  different  phases  of  the  same 
question.  The  career  of  Mr.  Bryan  with  respect  to 
the  issue  of  imperialism  divides  itself  both  logically 
and  chronologically  into  three  periods: 


20 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEY  AN 


First.  Educating  the  Democratic  party. 

Second.  Educating  the  American  nation. 

Third.  Educating  the  people  of  the  world. 

Educating  the  Democratic  Party 

It  will  be  admitted  by  every  historian  who  writes 
of  a  period  twenty  years  ago  that  the  question  of 
imperialism  was  thrust  upon  us  unexpectedly.  It 
sprang  in  a  moment  out  of  the  issues  of  war. 
Practically  no  one  foresaw  it,  but  the  war  came, 
Dewey  sank  the  Spanish  fleet  in  Manila  Bay  and 
the  Philippines  were  firmly  in  our  grasp — the  prize 
of  war.  America  stood  at  the  threshold  of  Asia 
and  for  the  first  time  in  our  history  we  exercised 
sea  control  outside  of  the  natural,  historic  bound¬ 
aries  of  the  United  States.  Before  very  many 
saw  the  issue  which  was  before  us,  and  before  any 
other  public  leader  of  prominence  in  either  party 
had  taken  a  stand,  Mr.  Bryan,  speaking  at  the 
Auditorium  in  Omaha,  Nebraska,  declared  against 
the  annexation  of  the  Philippine  Islands  and 
against  the  policy  of  expansion.  He  was  then 
raising  a  regiment  for  the  Spanish  War. 

Let  us  speak  frankly  as  well  as  truly.  The 
Democratic  party  was  not  then  with  Mr.  Bryan. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  party  divided  itself  in  senti¬ 
ment  about  as  follows: 

The  East  was  largely  anti-imperialistic  and 
many  of  the  prominent  leaders  who  had  opposed 
Mr.  Bryan  in  1896  on  the  financial  issue  were  with 
him  on  the  issue  of  expansion. 

The  Middle  West  was  fairly  evenly  divided.  It 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  21 


did  not  have  its  mind  made  up  fully,  but  evinced 
strong  leanings  toward  expansion,  especially  while 
the  war-fever  was  so  strong  in  the  nation. 

The  trans-Mississippi  country  and  the  Far  West 
were  literally  wild  for  expansion.  The  farther 
west  one  went,  the  stronger  the  sentiment  became 
and  the  party  on  the  Pacific  Coast  was  almost  of 
one  mind  in  favour  of  acquiring  and  retaining 
this  subject  nation. 

It  is,  therefore,  within  the  limits  of  accurate 
history  to  say  that  when  Mr.  Bryan  left  the  army 
after  the  conclusion  of  peace  to  fight  for  the  prin¬ 
ciples  on  the  public  platform  in  December,  1898, 
the  Democratic  party  was  not  with  him  on  the 
subject  of  expansion. 

The  writer  submits  that  this  was  the  hour  which 
furnished  the  supreme  test  of  Mr.  Bryan’s  political 
leadership.  No  higher  test  of  courage  or  of  lead¬ 
ership  could  come  to  a  man  than  Mr.  Bryan  was 
subjected  to  in  that  hour.  The  opportunity  for 
clever  trimming  was  never  so  good.  The  induce¬ 
ment  to  offend  nobody  was  never  so  powerful  as 
then.  Mr.  Bryan  was  thirty-eight  years  of  age  and 
admittedly  the  idol  of  his  party.  He  had  every¬ 
thing  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain  by  taking  an  ad¬ 
vanced  stand  on  a  question  that  had  just  been 
raised.  How  easy  to  have  been  a  “  pussy-footer  ” ! 
How  easy  to  have  gone  around  the  country  saying 
oracular  things  that  looked  both  ways  in  order  to 
first  find  out  how  party  sentiment  stood  and  to 
learn  how  the  wind  was  blowing!  But  Mr.  Bryan 
was  never  a  follower.  His  convictions  had  long 


22 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEY  AN 


been  matured.  He  applied  to  the  policy  of  Amer¬ 
ica  the  principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
He  believed  that  a  nation  was  governed  by  the 
same  moral  laws  of  right  and  wrong  as  an  indi¬ 
vidual;  that  no  nation  can  afford  to  do  wrong, 
that  no  great  nation  can  afford  to  covet  the  land 
and  the  trade  of  a  weaker  nation.  Here  was  a 
new  type  of  leadership.  Here  was  a  man  who  on 
every  other  issue  held  six  million  Democrats  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,  the  latest  candidate  of  his 
party  for  President  with  a  personal  popularity  un¬ 
paralleled  in  the  history  of  American  politics.  But 
none  of  these  things  swerved  Bryan  for  a  moment. 
Without  waiting  to  consult  other  leaders  or  find 
out  the  trend  of  sentiment  in  his  own  party,  Mr. 
Bryan  took  his  stand  against  imperialism.  He 
campaigned  the  nation;  he  brought  the  party  to 
him;  he  wrote  his  views  on  this  subject  in  the 
Democratic  national  platforms  of  1900,  1904, 
1908,  and  1912.  He  lived  to  see  his  principles 
enacted  by  Congress,  the  Philippines  given  a  decla¬ 
ration  of  their  right  to  self-government  and  in¬ 
dependence,  and  his  ideas  vindicated  and  approved 
by  those  who  had  been  his  bitterest  opponents. 

Vindication  enough  for  one  lifetime,  surely! 
Certainly  so !  But  his  greatest  vindication  did  not 
come  in  the  realization  and  admission  by  the  Amer¬ 
ican  people  that  his  views  upon  imperialism  in  the 
Philippines  were  correct.  His  greatest  vindication 
came  in  that  hour  when  the  mightiest  military  na¬ 
tion  in  history  by  one  thunderbolt  sought  to  im¬ 
pose  its  imperialistic  will  by  force  upon  an  unsus- 


WOBLD  CONQUEST  AND  WOBLD  WAB  23 


pecting  world;  and  in  four  years  of  savage  warfare 
there  was  hammered  out  upon  the  iron  anvil  of 
war  the  eternal  doctrines  that  forever  destroy  the 
imperialistic  principles  in  the  life  of  men  and  na¬ 
tions. 

But  Mr.  Bryant  first  task  was  really  his  hard¬ 
est  one,  and  that  was  to  educate  his  party  to  his 
own  views.  He  risked  his  popularity,  he  risked 
his  leadership,  he  risked  his  future  candidacy  for 
the  presidency.  He  threw  them  all  into  the  bal¬ 
ance  and  started  out  to  convince  the  Democratic 
party  that  his  views  were  correct.  Here  was  a 
leader  who  carefully  reasoned  out  his  position  on 
a  new  public  question,  who  surveyed  the  whole 
life  of  a  generation,  who  looked  upon  men  and  na¬ 
tions  and  issues  with  a  far-seeing  eye,  and  then, 
without  consulting  popular  opinion,  went  into  his 
own  library  and  closet,  consulted  his  deepest  con¬ 
victions  about  religion  and  life,  and  with  an  un¬ 
answerable  reason  based  upon  moral  principles, 
reached  a  definite  conclusion  and  announced  his 
ideas  to  his  party  and  the  world:  not  saying: 
“Which  way  are  you  marching ?”  “Where  is 
the  head  of  the  procession?  ”,  but  saying:  “  Here 
I  take  my  stand,”  and  “  He  that  is  not  with  me  is 
against  me.” 

Mr.  Bryan  resigned  from  the  army  December 
14,  1898,  saying,  among  other  things: 

“  Now  that  the  treaty  of  peace  has  been  concluded 
I  believe  that  I  can  be  more  useful  to  my  country  as 
a  civilian  than  as  a  soldier. 

“  Our  nation  is  in  greater  danger  now  than  is  Cuba. 


24 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


.  .  .  The  imperialistic  idea  is  directly  antagonistic 

to  the  ideas  and  ideals  which  have  been  cherished 
by  the  American  people  since  the  signing  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  A  nation  cannot  en¬ 
dure,  half  republic  and  half  colony.  It  would  be 
easier  to  ratify  the  treaty  and  deal  with  the  question 
in  our  own  way.  The  issue  can  be  presented  directly 
by  a  resolution  of  Congress  declaring  the  policy  of 
the  nation  upon  this  subject.  Such  a  resolution 
would  make  a  clear-cut  issue  between  the  doctrine 
of  self-government  and  the  doctrine  of  imperialism.” 

Mr.  Bryan  advocated  the  passage  of  the  Bacon 
resolution  (introduced  January  11,  1899)  making 
precisely  this  declaration  but  it  was  defeated  in  the 
Senate  by  one  vote.  The  resolution  submitted 
read: 

“  Resolved  further,  that  the  United  States  hereby 
disclaim  any  disposition  or  intention  to  exercise  per¬ 
manent  sovereignty,  jurisdiction,  or  control  over  the 
said  islands,  and  assert  their  determination,  when  a 
stable  and  independent  government  shall  have  been 
erected  therein,  entitled  in  the  judgment  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States  to  recognition  as 
such,  to  transfer  to  said  government,  upon  terms 
which  shall  be  reasonable  and  just,  all  rights  secured 
under  the  cession  by  Spain,  and  to  thereupon  leave 
the  government  and  control  of  the  islands  to  their 
people.” 

(Vote  on  amendment,  2/14/99,  page  1846.  Yeas, 
29.  Nays,  29.  Chair — Vice-President  Hobart — 
voted  “  nay  ”  and  declared  amendment  lost.) 

Had  it  been  then  adopted  the  whole  future  of 
the  history  of  our  relation  to  the  Philippines  would 
have  been  different.  It  needs  only  one  other  and 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  25 


later  historical  recital  to  conclude  the  record.  This 
declaration  was  adopted  by  a  Democratic  House 
and  Senate  in  1913,  and  no  Republican  President 
or  Congress  has  dared  advocate  its  repeal.  It 
stands  as  the  declared  and  avowed  purpose  of 
America,  our  reaffirmation  of  our  devotion  to  the 
ideals  of  self-government  that  has  made  us  the 
nation  that  we  are. 

Mr.  Bryan  was  criticized  because  he  advocated 
ratification  of  the  treaty  which  gave  us  the  Philip¬ 
pines.  His  reply  was  given  in  his  acceptance 
speech  in  1900: 

“  In  view  of  the  criticism  which  my  action  aroused 
in  some  quarters,  I  take  this  occasion  to  restate  the 
reasons  given  at  that  time.  I  thought  it  safer  to 
trust  the  American  people  to  give  independence  to 
the  Filipinos  than  to  trust  the  accomplishment  of 
that  purpose  to  diplomacy  with  an  unfriendly  nation. 

“  Lincoln  embodied  an  argument  in  the  question 
when  he  asked,  ‘  Can  aliens  make  treaties  easier  than 
friends  can  make  laws?’  I  believe  that  we  are  now 
in  a  better  position  to  wage  a  successful  contest 
against  imperialism  than  we  would  have  been  had 
the  treaty  been  rejected.  With  the  treaty  ratified  a 
clean-cut  issue  is  presented  between  a  government 
by  consent  and  a  government  by  force,  and  imperial¬ 
ists  must  bear  the  responsibility  for  all  that  happens 
until  the  question  is  settled. 

“If  the  treaty  had  been  rejected  the  opponents  of 
imperialism  would  have  been  held  responsible  for 
any  international  complications  which  might  have 
arisen  before  the  ratification  of  another  treaty.  But 
whatever  difference  of  opinion  may  have  existed  as 
to  the  best  method  of  opposing  a  colonial  policy, 
there  never  was  any  difference  as  to  the  great  impor- 


26 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


tance  of  the  question  and  there  is  no  difference  now 
as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued. 

“  The  title  of  Spain  being  extinguished  we  were 
at  liberty  to  deal  with  the  Filipinos  according  to 
American  principles.  The  Bacon  resolution,  intro¬ 
duced  a  month  before  hostilities  broke  out  at  Manila, 
promised  independence  to  the  Filipinos  on  the  same 
terms  that  it  was  promised  to  the  Cubans.  I  sup¬ 
ported  this  resolution  and  believe  that  its  adoption 
prior  to  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities  would  have 
prevented  bloodshed,  and  that  its  adoption  at  any 
subsequent  time  would  have  ended  hostilities. 

“If  the  treaty  had  been  rejected  considerable  time 
would  have  necessarily  elapsed  before  a  new  treaty 
could  have  been  agreed  upon  and  ratified,  and  dur¬ 
ing  that  time  the  question  would  have  been  agitating 
the  public  mind.  If  the  Bacon  resolution  had  been 
adopted  by  the  Senate  and  carried  out  by  the  Presi¬ 
dent,  either  at  the  time  of  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty  or  at  any  time  afterwards,  it  would  have  taken 
the  question  of  imperialism  out  of  politics  and  left 
the  American  people  free  to  deal  with  their  domestic 
problems.  But  the  resolution  was  defeated  by  the 
vote  of  the  Republican  Vice-President,  and  from  that 
time  to  this  a  Republican  Congress  has  refused  to 
take  any  action  whatever  in  the  matter.” 

The  Bryan  campaign  (of  1900)  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  personal  and  political  campaigns  in 
the  political  history  of  any  country.  From  Boston 
to  San  Francisco,  from  Minneapolis  to  New  Or¬ 
leans,  Mr.  Bryan  was  heard  in  all  the  great  centers 
of  the  nation.  There  is  no  doubt  that  his  wide 
personal  popularity  not  only  brought  him  great 
audiences,  but  predisposed  the  Democratic  masses 
in  his  favour.  But  he  encountered  bitter  opposi- 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  27 


tion,  and  a  wild  passion  aroused  by  the  war  which 
demanded  the  fruits  of  victory.  The  most  difficult 
sentiment  in  the  world  to  overcome  is  the  war 
passion  which  demands  the  fruits  of  conquest,  be¬ 
cause  the  man  who  favours  retaining  the  fruits  of 
war  can  hide  behind  the  Flag. 

“  The  Flag  is  in  the  Philippines.  Who  will  haul 
it  down  ?  ”  This  was  the  battle  cry  of  the  oppo¬ 
sition  and  we  must  submit  it  is  the  most  attractive 
and  effective  battle  cry  which  could  have  been  de¬ 
vised.  It  was  harder  to  meet  than  a  ton  of  argu¬ 
ment.  Mr.  Bryan’s  greatest  task  was  in  the  West. 
He  said  when  he  came  to  Denver  in  January  of 
1899:  “I  have  come  to  Denver  with  the  under¬ 
standing  that  the  West  is  wild  for  the  annexation 
of  the  Philippines.”  Mr.  Bryan  was  right.  He 
literally  had  to  change  opinions  which  had  been 
forged  in  the  white  heat  of  war;  but  he  changed 
them.  Gradually  the  leaders  began  to  see  the 
strength  of  his  views.  They  began  to  realize  that 
this  nation  must  never  embark  upon  an  imperial¬ 
istic  adventure  and  gradually  the  sentiment  began 
to  veer  in  his  direction.  Mr.  Bryan  was  greatly 
helped  by  the  attitude  of  President  McKinley  and 
the  Republican  administration,  for,  with  some  nota¬ 
ble  exceptions,  they  were  rapidly  ranging  them¬ 
selves  on  the  side  of  expansion.  Mr.  Bryan  asked 
that  the  treaty  of  peace  contain  a  declaration  fa¬ 
vourable  to  the  independence  of  the  Philippines, 
but  he  was  beaten.  President  McKinley  came  out 
outspokenly  for  the  permanent  retention  of  the 
Philippine  Islands.  Senator  Beveridge  and  Vice- 


28 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


President  Roosevelt,  then  a  candidate  and  one  of 
the  leaders  of  his  party,  were  merciless  in  their 
criticism  of  the  Nebraskan  leader.  They  declared 
that  the  Philippines  were  ours  forever,  that  God 
directed  the  battle,  that  Providence  gave  us  the 
Philippines  and  embarked  us  upon  a  course  of 
imperialism.  The  Filipinos  fought,  they  resisted 
the  yoke  of  a  foreign  nation,  a  war  followed,  but 
the  force  of  America  finally  subdued  those  who 
struggled  for  liberty.  The  conscience  of  the  na¬ 
tion  was  with  Bryan  but  the  pocketbook  of  the 
nation  was  against  him.  By  January  of  1900,  the 
Democratic  party  was  substantially  in  accord  with 
its  leader  and  the  Republican  party  was  united  in 
favour  of  imperialism.  The  lines  of  battle  were 
definitely  drawn  and  extended.  The  opposing 
ideas  are  found  in  the  platforms  of  the  two  parties 
and  the  position  of  the  Democratic  party  has  never 
been  altered.  The  Republicans  gave  no  hope  what¬ 
ever  to  the  Filipinos  and  they  approved  the  use  of 
force  to  destroy  the  sentiment  of  self-government. 
With  fine  scorn,  Mr.  Bryan  said :  “  I  want  to  know 
whether  the  mothers  of  this  land  have  no  higher 
ambition  for  their  sons  than  to  raise  them  up  and 
send  them  across  the  seas  to  fight  the  ideas  of 
freedom  in  a  foreign  land  in  order  that  somebody 
may  get  railroad  franchises.,, 

Thus  was  the  issue  joined  and  the  campaign  that 
followed  was  clean,  educative  and  intensive  in  the 
extreme.  Our  foreign  policy  was  the  issue.  But 
Champ  Clark  described  the  attitude  of  America 
when  he  told  how  in  a  political  meeting  he  had 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  29 


shown  the  wrongful  course  which  America  was 
embarking  upon  and  a  farmer  in  the  crowd  said, 
“  Well,  I  guess  we  can  stand  it  as  long  as  hogs  are 
at  a  high  price  per  pound.”  This  argument  car¬ 
ried  the  Mississippi  Valley  against  the  Bryan  ideas 
on  imperialism.  When  the  Democratic  party  was 
defeated,  Mr.  Bryan’s  opponents  said  his  career 
was  over.  He  had  picked  upon  an  issue  and  had 
lost  it.  Now  he  would  abandon  this  issue,  but  even 
if  he  retained  it,  his  career  was  over. 

Mr.  Bryan’s  career  would  have  been  ended  if 
he  had  based  it  upon  a  wrong  issue,  for  a  public 
man  rises  or  falls  by  the  strength  of  the  princi¬ 
ples  he  advocates.  No  amount  of  brilliant  per¬ 
sonality  or  stirring  oratory  or  clever  wit  can  ever 
make  a  public  man  survive.  He  must  rise  or  fall 
by  his  principles.  Here  is  the  secret  of  Mr. 
Bryan’s  political  longevity.  He  is  constantly  re¬ 
ceiving  a  new  vindication  in  the  adoption  of  these 
principles.  He  took  the  right  side  of  the  question 
of  imperialism,  not  the  popular  side,  not  the  war¬ 
like  side,  not  the  side  which  people  favoured  who 
are  aroused  to  a  passion  by  war ;  but  the  right  side. 

“  Is  it  right?  ” 

This  is  what  Lincoln  said  in  his  immortal 
debate  with  Douglas  and  “  this  is  the  issue  that 
will  continue  in  this  country  when  these  poor 
tongues  of  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.” 

A  man  can  afford  to  lose  the  Presidency  if  he 
is  on  the  right  side  of  an  issue,  but  no  man  can 
afford  to  win  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States 
on  the  wrong  side  of  an  issue. 


30 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


Educating  the  American  Nation 

Mr.  Bryan  was  educating  the  nation  when  he 
was  educating  the  Democratic  party  but  a  long 
period  of  further  education  was  necessary  from  a 
non-partisan  platform;  and  this  Mr.  Bryan  accom¬ 
plished.  With  the  Republican  party  in  power  in 
all  branches  of  the  government,  the  policy  of  im¬ 
perialism  went  on  uncrushed  and  unchecked.  Re¬ 
bellion  was  crushed.  The  supreme  court  sustained 
the  policy  in  the  Downes  case,  and  the  Philippines 
were  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  property  of  the 
United  States  forever. 

But  the  heart  of  America  was  disturbed  and  un¬ 
easy.  Our  policy  of  imperialism  did  not  square 
with  our  revolutionary  principles  and  teachings. 
There  was  a  moral  factor  involved  and  while  the 
desire  for  markets  and  the  greed  of  conquest  and 
the  spirit  of  war  were  still  powerful,  yet  there 
was  a  moral  issue  involved  and  slowly  but  surely 
this  moral  issue  began  to  enter  the  mind  and  heart 
of  America  and  to  resist  the  materialism  which 
had  so  thoroughly  infused  itself  into  all  our  na¬ 
tional  and  personal  life.  Many  factors  contributed 
to  this  change: 

1.  The  policy  of  America  did  not  square  with 
her  historic  traditions  and  principles. 

2.  Mr.  Bryan’s  unceasing  attacks  upon  the 
policy  of  imperialism. 

3.  The  Russo-Japanese  war  and  concurrent 
developments  in  the  Orient. 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  31 

4.  The  steady  aggressions  of  Japan  and  Rus^- 
sia  in  Korea  and  China. 

5.  The  progress  of  the  Filipinos  toward  self- 
government,  thus  confirming  Mr.  Bryan’s 
views. 

6.  Even  as  early  as  1907,  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  a 
presidential  message  declared  that  it  was 
his  plan  to  permit  the  Filipinos  to  have 
self-government,  “  after  the  fashion  of  the 
really  free  peoples.”  Sentiment  was 
changing.  The  Filipinos  themselves  came 
to  the  bar  of  Congress  to  plead  their  cause. 

In  1912  upon  an  anti-imperialistic  plank  written 
by  Mr.  Bryan,  the  Democratic  party  found  itself 
in  power.  The  Filipinos’  promised  independence 
was  already  in  sight.  Congress  passed  a  resolu¬ 
tion  declaring  the  nation’s  purpose  toward  the 
Philippines.  Even  without  any  outside  event  hap¬ 
pening,  the  nation  was  slowly  but  surely  gravitat¬ 
ing  toward  the  position  taken  by  Mr.  Bryan  in 
1900. 

And  it  was  this  resolution,  the  Jones  resolution, 
as  first  advocated  in  essence  by  Mr.  Bryan  and 
finally  adopted  after  he  had  written  the  promise 
into  four  platforms  of  his  party,  that  placed 
America  in  the  right  relation  to  the  Filipinos,  pre¬ 
vented  this  nation  from  embarking  upon  a  policy 
of  imperialism  and  saved  America  from  ever  being 
classed  with  those  nations  which,  in  the  past,  have 
sought  conquest. 

But  a  far  greater  vindication  was  at  hand.  Out 


32 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


of  the  great  loom  of  Time  on  which  is  woven  the 
destiny  of  nations,  was  coming  the  World  War, 
and  out  of  it  was  coming  a  vindication  for  Bryan 
ideas  surpassing  any  vindication  any  political 
leader  has  had  in  probably  any  age  of  world-his¬ 
tory.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  World  War 
reversed  the  opinion  of  America  on  the  question 
of  imperialism  and  changed  the  standards,  princi¬ 
ples  and  ideas  of  the  nations  of  the  world — a 
change  so  profound  and  vast  that  the  historian  of 
this  present  day  cannot  adequately  measure  it — and 
the  change  which  has  come  over  the  dream  of  the 
world  is  a  change  from  an  attitude  favouring  im¬ 
perialism  to  an  attitude  directly  against  that  policy 
and  sustaining  and  vindicating  the  policies  and 
principles  of  William  Jennings  Bryan.  It  is  diffi¬ 
cult  to  view  the  question  of  imperialism  in  the  light 
of  the  World  War  and  to  realize  that  we  ever  held 
to  the  view  that  a  strong  and  powerful  nation 
could  impose  its  will  upon  a  weaker  nation  by 
force  of  arms.  The  Great  War  has  caused  the 
whole  world  to  revise  its  opinions  on  nearly  every 
question  relating  to  the  life  of  nations  and  of  peo¬ 
ples.  It  has  literally  melted  and  remoulded  the 
judgments,  the  thoughts  and  the  impulses  of  man¬ 
kind.  But  on  no  subject  has  it  so  definitely  and 
concretely  revolutionized  opinions  as  on  the  ques¬ 
tion  which  we  define  by  the  one  word  “  imperial¬ 
ism/’  The  war  was  so  revolutionary  and  casuistic 
that  it  compelled  a  re-examination  of  nearly  every 
question;  and  we  in  America  have  re-examined 
our  views  upon  the  right  of  any  nation  to  sub- 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  33 


jugate  another  nation.  In  the  lurid  light  of  the 
great  conflict  upon  the  plains  of  France  and  Bel¬ 
gium,  we  see  the  whole  matter  of  imperialism  in  a 
new  form.  Instead  of  the  glories  of  war,  instead 
of  the  conquest  for  markets,  instead  of  a  competi¬ 
tive  mad  rush  of  nations  for  the  trade  of  weaker 
peoples,  we  see  emerging  into  view  the  banner  of 
the  cross,  the  kindly  hand,  the  brotherly  spirit 
stretching  itself  over  the  nations  of  the  world. 
“  Above  the  din  and  clang  of  war  we  hear  the  deep 
undertone  ”  of  the  songs  of  humanity  chanting  the 
praises  of  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

In  the  light  of  the  gigantic  attempt  of  Germany 
to  subdue  the  world  by  force  and  to  realize  the  im¬ 
perialistic  ambitions  of  her  war  lord  the  stand  of 
Mr.  Bryan  in  1896  and  1900  seems  almost  inspired. 
This  is  not  saying  that  American  occupation  of  the 
Philippines  is  at  all  comparable  to  German  military 
invasions  and  conquests.  Far  from  it.  Our  great 
republic  has  not  shown  this  ruthlessness  and 
American  occupation  has  resulted  in  vast  good  to 
the  Filipinos,  which  they  willingly  acknowledge. 
Mr,  Bryan  never  asked  that  America  relinquish  the 
islands  to  any  foreign  prey  but  only  that  while  help¬ 
ing  them  in  brotherly  fashion  to  get  on  their  feet 
we  do  so  with  a  declaration  that  we  entertained  no 
designs  of  permanent  control  over  them  and  that 
in  due  time  we  intended  them  to  be  free,  even  as 
we  are  free.  And  there  never  was  any  doubt  as 
to  what  would  be  the  ultimate  policy  of  a  democ¬ 
racy  like  America.  The  Filipinos  themselves  have 
had  the  good  sense  to  see  this.  But  America  needs 


34 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


to  be  careful  to  disclaim  the  imperialistic  motive, 
as  she  did  with  Cuba,  and  then  by  her  acts  to  live 
up  to  her  high  declaration  of  principles.  Germany 
was  the  spirit  of  imperialism  personified.  Her 
aims  were  all  imperialistic.  She  conceived  the  war 
from  imperialistic  ambitions.  She  constructed  it 
on  imperialistic  principles.  She  fought  it  to 
achieve  imperialistic  ends.  Her  worship  of  might 
and  force,  her  cunning  preparation,  her  thunder¬ 
bolts  launched  upon  an  unsuspecting  world,  her 
invasion  of  Belgium  and  France,  her  attempt  to 
impose  her  will  on  the  world  by  force  startled  the 
moral,  ethical,  religious  sentiment  of  the  world 
and  awakened  America  into  a  realization  of  the 
wrong  and  the  danger  that  lie  inherent  in  a  policy 
of  conquest.  America  turned  again  to  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  Bryan  and  listened  again  to  his  voice 
pleading  with  this  Republic  to  leave  the  false  ideals 
of  conquest,  to  give  up  purchasing  trade  with 
blood  and  to  plant  itself  as  a  free  nation  upon  the 
principles  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  doctrines  of 
human  brotherhood.  Let  us  think  again  of  the 
brazen,  arrogant  declarations  of  the  German  mili¬ 
tary  leaders  and  their  war  lord  as  their  mighty 
armies  swept  over  the  defenseless  peoples  of 
Europe.  Let  us  look  at  this  nation  so  proud  in 
its  military  force  now  humbled  and  conquered, 
with  its  imperialistic  dream  shattered;  and  in  the 
light  of  this  stupendous  disaster,  let  us  read  again 
the  words  that  in  1900  came  from  the  mouth  of 
Mr.  Bryan: 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  35 

“  Behold  a  republic  in  which  civil  and  religious 
liberty  stimulate  all  to  earnest  endeavour,  and  in 
which  the  law  restrains  every  hand  uplifted  for  a 
neighbour’s  injury — a  republic  in  which  every  citizen 
is  sovereign,  but  in  which  no  one  cares  to  wear  a 
crown. 

“  Behold  a  republic  standing  erect,  while  empires 
all  around  are  bowed  beneath  the  weight  of  their  own 
armaments — a  republic  whose  flag  is  loved,  while 
other  flags  are  only  feared. 

“  Behold  a  republic  increasing  in  population,  in 
wealth,  in  strength  and  in  influence,  solving  the  prob¬ 
lems  of  civilization  and  hastening  the  coming  of  a 
universal  brotherhood — a  republic  which  shakes 
thrones  and  dissolves  aristocracies  by  its  silent  ex¬ 
ample,  and  gives  light  and  inspiration  to  those  who 
sit  in  darkness. 

“  Behold  a  republic  gradually  but  surely  becoming 
the  supreme  moral  factor  in  the  world’s  progress  and 
the  accepted  arbiter  of  the  world’s  disputes — a  re¬ 
public  whose  history,  like  the  path  of  the  just,  ‘  is 
as  the  shining  light  that  shineth  more  and  more 
unto  the  perfect  day.’  ” 

But  the  greatest  personal  and  political  vindica¬ 
tion  which  Mr.  Bryan  received  came  out  of  the 
mouth  of  his  greatest  opponent,  Theodore  Roose¬ 
velt.  Why  do  we  select  Mr.  Roosevelt?  Because 
he  had  been  the  leader  of  the  Republican  party 
from  September,  1901,  until  January  of  1919,  be¬ 
cause  he  had  controlled  its  destinies  as  few  other 
men  have,  because  he  was  one  of  the  soundest 
thinkers  this  or  any  other  nation  has  ever  pro¬ 
duced;  because  he  had  been  most  outspoken  and 
violent  in  his  criticism  of  Mr.  Bryan  and  because 
he  had  changed  his  mind  and  came  over  to  Mr. 


36 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


Bryan’s  views  in  a  way  that  few  other  political 
leaders  ever  have.  In  1900,  Mr.  Roosevelt  said  of 
Mr.  Bryan’s  views  on  imperialism: — in  the  Roose¬ 
velt  letter  accepting  the  Vice-Presidential  nomina¬ 
tion — 

“  The  only  certain  way  of  rendering  it  necessary 
for  our  republic  to  enter  onto  a  career  of  militarism 
would  be  to  abandon  the  Philippines  to  their  own 
tribes. 

“  The  question  is  now,  not  whether  we  shall  ex¬ 
pand,  but  whether  we  shall  contract.  The  Philip¬ 
pines  are  now  part  of  American  territory.  To  sur¬ 
render  them,  would  be  to  surrender  American  terri¬ 
tory.” 

But  in  the  light  of  the  great  war  and  of  the 
dangerous  position  we  occupied  in  the  Orient  if  we 
attempted  to  hold  the  Philippines  forever,  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  in  his  book  “America  and  the  World 
War,”  Chapter  9,  page  160,  written  in  the  year 
1915  and  just  fifteen  years  after  he  so  bitterly  at¬ 
tacked  Bryan’s  policy  in  regard  to  the  Philippines, 
said: 

“  I  exclude  the  Philippines.  This  is  because  I  feel 
that  the  present  administration  has  definitely  com¬ 
mitted  us  to  a  course  of  action  which  will  make  the 
early  and  complete  severance  of  the  Philippines  from 
us  not  merely  desirable  but  necessary. 

“  I  hope,  therefore,  that  the  Filipinos  will  be  given 
their  independence  at  an  early  date.  .  .  . 

“  I  do  not  believe  we  should  keep  any  foothold 
whatever  in  the  Philippines.  Any  kind  of  position 
by  us  in  the  Philippines  merely  results  in  making 
them  pur  ‘  heel  of  Achilles  ’  if  we  are  attacked  by  a 


WORLD  CONQUEST  AND  WORLD  WAR  37 


foreign  power.  They  can  be  of  no  compensating 
benefit  to  us.” 

Could  vindication  be  greater?  Could  any  man 
ask  more  of  a  generous  political  opponent  than  that 
he  come  out  in  this  frank  and  open  fashion  and 
admit  that  whereas  he  was  wrong  his  opponent 
was  right,  and  that  the  views  which  he  once  con¬ 
demned  he  now  found  it  necessary  to  commend  ? 


Ill 


THE  TRUSTS 


WE  come  now  to  one  of  the  most  im¬ 
portant  periods  in  Mr.  Bryan’s  life — 
the  period  of  the  fight  to  control  the 
great  trusts  and  combinations  of  the  nation.  The 
trusts  had  been  growing,  enlarging  and  spreading 
their  power  over  new  fields  ever  since  1885.  They 
had  become  a  power  even  as  early  as  1890.  The 
Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  was  a  response  to  de¬ 
mand  for  legislation  to  curb  their  growing  power 
and  the  feeling  of  alarm  spreading  over  the  nation 
in  regard  to  them.  The  law  had  been  largely  a 
dead  letter  and  by  1896  the  feeling  all  over  the 
nation  was  that  some  stronger  remedy  was  needed. 
After  the  victory  of  the  Republican  party  in  1896, 
the  trusts  grew  and  waxed  fat  with  a  rapidity  and 
wielded  a  power  that  threatened  the  healthy  com¬ 
mercial  life  of  the  nation.  The  trusts  had  elected 
their  friends  to  power  and  they  thought  they  could 
do  as  they  pleased.  They  were  right;  and  they 
did  do  as  they  pleased.  They  grew  so  arrogant 
and  strong  that  conservative  thinkers,  even  in  the 
Republican  party,  saw  that  they  must  be  curbed. 
It  was  this  new  sentiment  developing  even  then  in 
the  Republican  party  which  grew  until  it  came  to 
voice  in  the  anti-trust  campaign  of  President  Theo- 

38 


THE  TRUSTS 


39 


dore  Roosevelt  in  1902  and  1907-1908  and  which 
laid  the  foundations  for  the  Roosevelt  break  and 
the  Progressive  party  in  1912.  That  remarkable 
movement  had  its  roots  in  the  movement  started 
away  back  in  1902  by  Roosevelt  for  .curbing  the 
power  of  the  trusts.  Indeed,  we  may  go  back 
much  further  and  say  that  it  had  its  roots  in  the 
earlier  agitation  of  Mr.  Bryan  for  the  prevention 
of  trusts. 

But  this  is  leading  us  into  fields  far  too  wide  for 
the  limits  of  this  chapter.  We  have  not  space  or 
time  to  enter  upon  a  general  study  of  the  political 
history  of  the  country  for  the  past  twenty  years. 
Such  a  history  must  some  day  be  written  by  some 
impartial  historian  and  if  he  really  be  impartial  and 
set  down  facts  with  a  clear  and  unbiased  view  he 
must  give  first  place  to  William  Jennings  Bryan 
in  discussing  the  anti-trust  movement  in  America. 

By  the  end  of  the  Spanish-American  war  in 

1898  and  the  entrance  of  the  country  into  the  year 

1899  the  thought  of  the  nation  turned  to  the  trust 
question  as  probably  the  overshadowing  domestic 
issue  of  the  campaign  of  1900.  Indeed,  had  the 
war  not  thrust  the  question  of  imperialism  into 
the  forefront  the  trust  question  would  have  been 
the  single  issue  of  the  campaign  of  1900. 

But  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1899 — just  on 
the  eve  of  the  approaching  presidential  campaign 
— the  prime  economic  question  before  the  country 
centered  around  the  trusts  and  the  great  debate 
of  that  year  was  on  the  question  “  What  remedy 
can  be  found  for  trusts  ?  ” 


40 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


Everybody  in  those  days  had  a  remedy.  Some 
folks  wanted  to  let  them  alone  and  let  competition 
kill  them;  others  wanted  to  make  them  over  into 
law-proof  and  water-tight  monopolies  and  let  them 
run  amuck,  still  others  wanted  the  government  to 
regulate  them  as  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade. 
Others  wanted  to  rely  upon  lawsuits  alone,  under 
the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law. 

It  remained  for  Mr.  Bryan  to  propose  a  new 
remedy.  While  on  a  visit  to  Colorado  in  August 
of  1899,  Mr.  Bryan  was  interviewed  by  the  Rocky 
Mountain  News  of  Denver  and  on  August  28  of 
that  year,  on  page  two  will  be  found  a  facsimile 
photograph  print  of  his  written  statement  of  a 
remedy  for  the  trusts.  It  is  copied  verbatim: 

“  The  trusts  can  be  destroyed  whenever  the  peo¬ 
ple  carry  their  hostility  toward  the  trusts  to  the  point 
of  voting  against  them.  One  remedy,  and  I  believe 
a  complete  one,  can  be  found  in  a  law  which  will 
require  corporations  to  secure  a  license  before  doing 
business  outside  of  the  state  in  which  they  are  or¬ 
ganized.  Such  license  can  be  issued  upon  conditions 
which  will  squeeze  the  water  out  of  the  stock  and 
prevent  monopoly. 

"  W.  J.  Bryan.” 

This  remedy  deserves  most  careful  reading.  It 
is  packed  with  meaning  and  force.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  comprehensive  statements  in  the  briefest 
form  ever  made  on  a  great  economic  problem. 

But,  passing  for  a  moment  the  merit  of  the 
proposition,  let  us  see  what  became  of  the  proposed 
remedy. 


THE  TRUSTS 


41 


In  the  first  place  this  was  the  very  first  proposal 
of  such  a  remedy  by  anybody  of  prominence  or 
importance  in  the  nation.  It  was,  indeed,  the  first 
time  any  such  remedy  had  ever  been  so  proposed. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  nobody  had  thought  of 
it  or  ever  mentioned  it  or  that  somewhere  in  some 
book  some  one  may  not  have  suggested  such  a 
remedy.  What  is  meant  is  that  no  public  man  of 
prominence  in  America  had,  up  to  that  time,  sug¬ 
gested  this  remedy  for  trusts;  no  one  has  ever 
laid  claim  to  priority  over  Mr.  Bryan  on  this  sub¬ 
ject.  Mr.  Bryan  is  entitled  to  all  the  credit  we 
can  give  him  for  he  is  the  sole  author  of  the 
remedy. 

The  reception  accorded  the  Bryan  remedy  was 
exactly  what  might  be  expected  from  a  press 
which  was  so  largely  hostile.  The  remedy  was 
received  with  derision  by  the  opposition  papers 
generally.  It  was  “  vague  and  futile,”  “  silly  and 
impossible  ” ;  “  It  had  been  propounded  by  Mr. 
Bryan  merely  as  a  plank  to  catch  votes,  to  get  into 
the  presidency  with  ” ;  “  to  make  a  campaign  is¬ 
sue”;  “It  was  unheard  of”;  “No  political 
economists  were  sanctioning  it.”  No  Republican 
leader  would  favour  it  because  that  would  have 
been  quite  contrary  to  the  general  principles  of 
party  loyalty.  The  Democratic  press  generally  was 
favourable  with  here  and  there  some  sober  oppo¬ 
sition  editor  who  saw  the  merit  of  the  proposal 
and  frankly  said  so.  But  it  was  high  treason  for 
any  Republican  to  endorse  Bryan’s  views  on  any¬ 
thing.  It  is  all  right  and  perfectly  proper  and 


42 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BBYAN 


patriotic  to  put  his  views  into  law  and  make  them 
the  fundamental  policy  of  the  land,  provided  you 
carefully  keep  the  Bryan  label  off  the  goods. 

In  the  fall  of  1899,  Mr.  Bryan  proposed  the 
remedy  at  an  anti-trust  conference  in  Chicago 
where  it  received  wide  consideration  and  was  ac¬ 
corded  an  enthusiastic  hearing;  it  was  after  this 
speech  that  the  proposal  received  genuine  nation¬ 
wide  attention.  In  the  Chicago  speech  Mr.  Bryan 
made  another  historic  declaration.  It  was  the 
opening  sentence  of  that  famous  speech  and,  like 
the  trust  remedy,  has  a  history  of  its  own.  Here 
it  is:  “  I  begin  with  the  declaration  that  a  monopoly 
in  private  hands  is  indefensible  from  any  stand¬ 
point  and  intolerable.  I  make  no  exception  to  the 
rule.”  Neither  the  Democratic  party  nor  its  Presi¬ 
dent,  Mr.  Wilson,  has  ever  made  any  exceptions 
to  this  rule. 

“A  clever  phrase,”  says  some  critic?  A  fact, 
granted  that  it  is  a  phrase,  but  it  is  something 
more;  it  is  a  principle.  No  greater  principle  has 
ever  been  embodied  in  so  few  words  on  an  eco¬ 
nomic  issue.  And  in  addition  to  being  a  principle 
it  is  a  battle  cry  and  in  the  domain  of  logic  it  is  a 
starting  point  for  the  whole  problem  of  the  com¬ 
binations  in  restraint  of  trade. 

Mr.  Bryan  used  unmistakable  language;  there  is 
no  escaping  its  meaning  or  its  force.  It  defines  a 
form  of  industry  that  cannot  be  accepted  in  our 
modern  economic  life  in  America.  It  is  a  defini¬ 
tion  of  a  class  that  must  be  excluded  from  our 
thinking.  If  a  modern  progressive  American  be- 


THE  TRUSTS 


43 


gins  a  study  of  the  trust  problem  and  tries  to  clear 
up  his  thinking  and  find  out  where  he  stands  he 
may  take  this  sentence  as  a  starting  point  and 
reason  out  the  whole  problem  from  here. 

The  sentence — “  A  private  monopoly  is  inde¬ 
fensible  and  intolerable  ” — has  had  a  remarkable 
history,  quite  as  remarkable  as  the  Bryan  remedy 
for  trusts.  It  appeared  in  the  Democratic  plat¬ 
form  in  1900,  in  1904,  and  again  verbatim  in  the 
platform  of  1908  on  which  Bryan  ran  for  the 
presidency  and  in  the  platform  of  1912  on  which 
Wilson  was  first  elected  to  the  Presidency.  More¬ 
over,  President  Wilson  thought  so  well  of  it  as  a 
principle  and  a  battle  cry  to  rally  the  progressive 
forces  that  he  used  it  in  his  letter  of  acceptance 
and  in  his  trust  message  to  Congress.  In  this  spe¬ 
cial  message,  delivered  on  January  20,  1914,  he 
said,  “We  are  all  agreed  that  *  private  monopoly 
is  indefensible  and  intolerable  *  and  our  program 
is  founded  upon  that  conviction.” 

In  1900,  the  trust  issue  was  so  overshadowed 
by  the  issue  of  imperialism  that  the  remedy  was 
not  as  widely  discussed  as  it  might  have  been. 

But  leave  it  to  Father  Time.  He  is  the  great 
modifier  of  opinion.  He  makes  and  moulds  the 
minds  of  men  in  new  and  astonishing  ways. 
Roosevelt  succeeded  to  the  presidency  in  the  fall 
of  1901.  That  winter  he  named  James  R.  Garfield 
as  Commissioner  of  Corporations,  a  bureau  under 
the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labour.  In 
December,  1904,  he  made  his  report  to  his  chief 
and  that  report  was  transmitted  to  Congress,  being 


44 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


Document  No.  165  of  the  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives,  dated  December  21,  1904.  The  letter  of 
transmittal  is  dated  December  19,  1904.  I  quote 
from  pages  44  and  48  of  that  document: 

“  This  is  one  of  two  more  practical  methods  sug¬ 
gested.  It  assumes  the  passage  by  Congress  of  a 
complete  corporation  law,  with  the  compulsory  re¬ 
quirement  that  all  corporations  engaged  in  interstate 
commerce  shall  be  organized  under  such  a  law. 
.  .  .  Such  a  law  should  have  three  principal  fea¬ 

tures  : 

(a)  The  creation  by  Congress  of  corporations  with 
power  to  engage  in  interstate  commerce. 

(*)  The  prohibition  upon  all  other  corporations 
from  engaging  in  such  commerce. 

(O  The  granting  to  such  Federal  Corporation  the 
right  to  manufacture  and  produce. 

The  principal  features  of  such  a  system  would  be: 

(a)  The  granting  of  a  Federal  license  or  franchise 
to  engage  in  such  interstate  commerce. 

(O  The  imposition  of  all  necessary  requirements 
as  to  corporation  organization  and  manage¬ 
ment  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  grant  of 
such  franchise  or  license. 

(c)  The  requirement  of  such  reports  and  returns 
as  may  be  desired,  as  a  condition  of  the  re¬ 
tention  of  such  franchise  or  license. 

( d )  The  prohibition  of  all  corporations  from  en¬ 
gaging  in  interstate  commerce  without  such 
license  or  franchise.,, 

Mr.  Garfield  favoured  the  national  incorporation 
of  interstate  commerce  corporations;  Mr.  Bryan 
favoured  the  licensing  of  such  incorporation  but 
both  had  the  same  end  in  view. 


THE  TRUSTS 


45 


President  Roosevelt  was  giving  just  as  much 
thought  and  attention  to  the  trust  question  as  was 
his  Commissioner  of  Corporations.  In  December, 
1906,  he  sent  his  annual  message  to  Congress  and 
on  the  trust  question,  among  other  things,  he  said: 

“  In  some  method,  whether  by  a  national  license 
law  or  in  other  fashion,  we  must  exercise,  and  that 
at  an  early  date,  a  far  more  complete  control  than  at 
present  over  these  great  corporations — a  control  that 
will,  among  other  things,  prevent  the  evils  of  exces¬ 
sive  overcapitalization,  compel  the  disclosure  by  each 
big  corporation  of  its  stockholders  and  of  its  proper¬ 
ties  and  business.” 

In  1907  he  again  advocated  this  remedy  with  more 
elaboration. 

Is  it  strange,  therefore,  that  in  1908,  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  national  platform,  with  Bryan  as  the  can¬ 
didate,  should  reemphasize  this  remedy  and  make 
it  a  cardinal  feature  of  the  platform?  It  became 
one  of  the  leading  features  of  the  campaign  of 
1908.  Taft  did  not  favour  the  remedy  and  so  far 
never  has.  Governor  Hughes,  a  later  nominee  of 
the  Republican  party  for  the  Presidency,  trained 
his  heaviest  guns  upon  the  Bryan  trust  remedy. 
He  attempted  to  have  a  great  deal  of  fun  with  it 
and  interested  the  people,  as  he  travelled  around 
the  country  using  his  remarkable  analytical  mind 
to  pick  supposed  flaws  in  the  plan,  point  out  its 
theoretical  dangers  and  limitations  and  possible 
situations  that  might  arise  whenever  its  practical 
operation  was  attempted.  Of  course,  this  is  soft 
ground  for  any  one.  It  is  easy  to  take  any  remedy 


46 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


that  was  ever  proposed,  from  Christianity  to  the 
League  of  Nations,  and,  in  advance  of  its  actual 
operation,  suggest  all  sorts  of  possible  difficulties 
that  might  arise  under  it. 

But  the  Democrats  repeated  and  readopted  the 
remedy  again  and  endorsed  it  in  the  platform  of 
1912  and  it  remained  for  the  Democratic  President 
on  that  platform  to  finally  give  that  plank  official 
endorsement.  In  his  message  to  Congress,  in 
August  of  1919,  President  Wilson,  in  discussing 
a  remedy  for  trusts  and  trust  profiteering,  said: 

“  We  should  formulate  a  law  requiring  a  federal 
license  of  all  corporations  engaged  in  interstate  com¬ 
merce  and  embodying  in  the  license  or  conditions 
under  which  it  is  issued  specific  regulations  designed 
to  secure  competitive  selling  and  prevent  unconscion¬ 
able  profits  in  the  methods  of  marketing.  .  .  . 

Such  a  law  would  afford  a  welcome  opportunity  to 
effect  other  much  needed  reforms  in  the  business  of 
interstate  shipment  and  in  the  methods  of  corpora¬ 
tions  which  are  engaged  in  it.” 

We  may  therefore  close  this  chapter  of  our  dis¬ 
cussion  of  the  Bryan  contributions  to  American 
political  life  and  thought  with  this  approval  and 
endorsement  of  a  Bryan  remedy  given  by  a  great 
Democratic  President.  No  higher  approval  could 
be  found.  What  is  the  best  test  of  a  man’s  think¬ 
ing,  whether  it  be  sound  or  good  sense  or  of  value 
to  his  generation? 

Probably  the  very  best  test  is  for  his  ideas  to  be 
put  into  actual  concrete  practice  and  to  succeed. 
Partisanship  and  an  unwilling  popular  opinion  have 


THE  TRUSTS 


47 


iiot  yet  permitted  a  test  of  this  plan  of  Mr.  Bryan’s 
in  the  national  field  though  many  of  his  ideas  have 
already  stood  the  test  of  actual  practice. 

But  there  are  some  other  tests:  Is  the  plan  log¬ 
ical  ?  Are  the  ideas  sound  ?  Do  they  accord  with 
and  fit  facts,  hard  concrete  facts  as  we  find  them 
in  a  very  practical  world  ?  Do  they  fit  in  with  the 
legal  rules  and  constitutional  modes  of  operation 
of  our  state  and  federal  governments?  These  are 
real  tests. 

Now  the  very  best  test  of  whether  ideas  are 
sound  and  logical  is  found  in  the  way  they  com¬ 
mend  themselves  to  other  sound  thinking  men,  con¬ 
temporaries  of  the  man  who  puts  forth  the  ideas. 
Of  course,  some  prophet  cries  alone  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness  once  in  a  while  and  later  generations  hear  his 
voice  and  recognize  his  ideas.  But  we  have  a 
world  mentally  awake  now  and  steam  and  light¬ 
ning  and  invisible  currents  carry  ideas  to  the  four 
corners  of  earth  in  the  flash  of  an  eye.  The  whole 
world  is  thinking  more  clearly  and  thinking  to¬ 
gether,  as  it  never  did  before. 

Measured  by  this  last  test — by  approval  of  his 
contemporaries,  Mr.  Bryan’s  remedy  stands  the 
test  and  becomes  one  of  the  greatest  sources  of 
vindication  for  him  that  he  has  ever  enjoyed. 

The  Democrats  have  been  long  convinced.  It 
remained  to  convince  the  Republicans.  And  when 
two  such  eminent  Republican  leaders  and  such 
clear  thinkers  as  James  R.  Garfield  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt  commend  the  same  plan  it  must  have 
merit  and  worth. 


48 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


We  submit  that  on  a  remedy  for  the  trusts  Will¬ 
iam  J.  Bryan  has  not  only  been  Democracy’s  law¬ 
giver;  he  has  had  as  great  a  vindication  as  any 
public  leader  could  ask  at  the  hands  of  his  own 
generation.  And  we  will  risk  the  prediction  that  a 
greater  vindication  on  this  very  issue  is  yet  to 
come. 


IV 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  ROOSEVELT 

THE  reaction  of  Bryan  and  Roosevelt  upon 
the  careers  of  each  other  furnishes  one 
of  the  striking  contrasts  of  history.  The 
enlarging  picture  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  gains  new 
lines  from  the  perspective  Time  gives  to  it.  The 
picture  is  looming  larger  each  year;  the  lines  are 
becoming  clearer,  not  only  because  no  man  can 
have  justice  done  him  while  he  yet  lives  in  the 
fierce  heat  of  partisan  strife,  but  also  because  new 
angles  and  new  view-points  come  to  be  expressed 
when  history  is  really  given  a  chance  at  a  man. 

But  a  Democratic  view  of  Roosevelt  is  yet  to  be 
written.  What  did  the  great  Republican  leader's 
opponents  think  of  him?  Contemporary  history 
during  the  Roosevelt  days  furnishes  poor  answer. 
Indeed,  who  would  think  of  finding  the  real  meas¬ 
ure  of  any  man  from  what  his  political  opponents 
said  about  him  in  the  days  when  they  were  trying 
to  keep  him  out  of  office  and  get  themselves  into 
office? 

There  was  a  Democratic  opinion  about  Roose¬ 
velt,  however,  that  was  not  vocal  in  his  lifetime, 
not  often  heard  in  political  campaigns  and  that 
marked  the  true  view  of  most  Americans  about 
this  remarkable  American.  That  is  the  view  I 
propose  to  give  here.  It  is  the  view  of  Roosevelt 

49 


50 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


which  finds  him  rejecting  Mark  Hanna  reaction- 
aryism  after  sharing  in  its  rewards  in  1900  and 
sees  him  develop  into  the  leader  of  one  of  the  most 
advanced  national  progressive  movements  since  the 
Civil  War.  Theodore  Roosevelt  never  stood  still 
in  his  thinking  or  his  political  views;  he  was  con¬ 
stantly  growing  and  developing  and  his  progress 
was  away  from  Toryism  toward  Liberalism,  using 
these  terms  in  their  wide  political  sense;  from 
standpat,  reactionary  Republicanism  toward  broad, 
advanced  Democratic  progressivism.  There  are 
many  who  will  object  to  these  terms  and  who  will 
deny  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  ever  had  anything 
in  common  with  the  reactionary  or  with  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party.  They  are  mistaken,  as  I  hope  here 
to  show. 

This  development  of  Roosevelt  from  orthodox, 
hidebound  Republicanism  to  Progressivism  marks 
an  era  in  American  political  life.  It  had  a  pro¬ 
found  effect,  not  only  on  the  campaigns  of  1910, 
1912,  and  thereafter,  but  it  has  left  deep  impress 
upon  the  future  political  life  of  the  nation,  the 
evidences  of  which  are  yet  to  be  revealed. 

It  is  a  very  important  thing  to  know  when 
Roosevelt  actually  became  a  progressive  and  why 
he  became  one.  Victor  Murdock  once  said  that 
the  Presidency  made  Roosevelt  a  progressive,  and, 
broadly  speaking,  this  must  be  true.  Of  course, 
no  one  moment,  or  year,  or  event,  or  speech  can 
mark  the  change  in  a  man's  thinking — especially  of 
the  thinking  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Any  natural 
development,  either  mental  or  otherwise,  must  be 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  ROOSEVELT  51 


gradual  and  so  it  was  with  Roosevelt.  But  the 
answer  to  the  above  question  involves  the  delinea- 
tion  of  the  Democratic  view-point,  for  the  political 
evolution  of  Roosevelt  is  what  makes  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  view  of  him  interesting  and  important  in  an 
historical  sense. 

My  own  opinion  has  long  been  that  Roosevelt 
was  a  progressive  long  before  he  realized  or  ad¬ 
mitted  it  himself.  He  had  the  fundamental  sym¬ 
pathies  with  men  which  mark  the  true  progressive, 
and  he  had  that  broad  outlook  on  human  history 
which  sees  the  upward  struggle  of  humanity  as 
the  true  measure  of  historic  progress.  And  with 
a  certain  and  true  conception  of  this  struggle 
of  the  common  man  to  improve  his  lot,  throw  off 
his  burdens  and  fully  express  his  life,  the  true 
progressive  applies  this  knowledge  to  present  day 
problems  of  the  hour  to  ascertain  their  relation  to 
this  age-long  struggle  of  mankind  and  seeks  to  find 
in  the  concrete  problems  of  the  hour  those  meas¬ 
ures  which  will  correctly  aid  mankind  in  his  up¬ 
ward  struggle  toward  better  things.  This  is  what 
marks  the  real  progressive.  “  Mankind  has  moved 
slowly  upward  through  the  ages,  sometimes  a  little 
faster,  sometimes  a  little  slower,  but  rarely,  indeed, 
by  leaps  and  bounds.  At  times  a  great  crisis  comes 
in  which  a  great  people,  perchance,  led  by  a  great 
man,  can  at  white  heat  strike  some  mighty  blow 
for  the  right — make  a  long  stride  in  advance  along 
the  path  of  justice  and  orderly  liberty,”  said  Roose¬ 
velt  in  a  speech.  There  are  many  men  of  great 
wealth,  college  training  and  with  a  real  grasp  of 


52 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


the  philosophical  lessons  of  history  who  have  an 
intellectual  understanding  of  this  historic  view¬ 
point  of  man’s  upward  struggle  but  their  money 
and  selfishness  and  ease  and  their  acquired  view¬ 
point  make  them  refuse  to  apply  the  admitted 
truths  of  history  to  the  concrete  problems  of  the 
hour.  They  are  willing  to  concede,  in  the  abstract, 
truths  which  they  flatly  and  vehemently  deny  when 
applied  to  their  own  time  and  their  own  interest. 
This  is  why  it  is  of  the  deepest  historic  significance 
that  Roosevelt  was  left  a  heritage  of  property  by 
his  father  which  enabled  him  to  be  free  of  either 
poverty  or  of  inordinate  wealth.  He  did  not  need 
to  think  of  money  in  the  terms  in  which  a  captain 
of  industry  or  a  scion  of  mere  wealth  or  a  very 
poor  man  usually  does  think  of  it.  He  could  see 
money  in  its  right  proportion  to  the  other  things 
of  life. 

In  addressing  a  meeting  in  Denver,  Colonel 
Roosevelt  once  began  in  these  words,  “  When  I 
graduated  from  Harvard,  I  entered  the  New  York 
Legislature  and  began  my  education.” 

And  so  he  did,  and  the  education  was  along 
strictly  progressive  lines.  But  whether  Roosevelt 
then,  or  even  some  years  after  that,  suspected  that 
he  was  growing  in  a  progressive  direction  it  is 
quite  certain  that  no  Democrat  suspected  it.  His 
legislative  career  began  about  1881  and  it  was 
1904  and  1905  before  Democrats  generally  began 
to  realize  that  a  progressive  leader  sat  in  the  Presi¬ 
dent’s  chair. 

No  one  who  went  through  the  campaign  of 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  EOOSEYELT  53 


1896  will  ever  forget  it,  and  it  sounded  political 
depths  that  have  yet  to  make  their  final  mark  on 
American  political  thought  and  activity.  But  what 
we  are  here  trying  to  convey  as  a  background  for 
a  consideration  of  Roosevelt’s  growth  was  the  fact 
that  the  first  Bryan  campaign  was  far  from  being 
merely  a  free  silver  campaign.  It  was  a  protest 
against  the  vicious  activities  and  the  autocratic, 
dangerous  tendencies  of  organized  wealth  in 
America.  The  whole  Bryan  platform  of  1896 
shows  this  to  be  a  fact.  The  very  spirit  of  such  a 
protest  breathes  in  the  great  Bryan  speech  that 
swept  the  convention  that  year  and  in  the  platform 
that  declared  against  banking  control  of  the  treas¬ 
ury,  railroad  control  of  industry  and  politics  and 
court  control  of  labour  and  the  abuse  of  injunc¬ 
tions  and  in  the  plank  about  the  Supreme  Court 
and  its  income  tax  decision. 

Against  this  radical  deliverance  and  its  plain  and 
brilliantly  speaking  candidate  the  whole  Republican 
organization  set  itself.  It  was  a  campaign  of  the 
apotheosis  of  wealth.  Wall  Street  was  magnified 
and  glorified  and  it  was  rank  treason  to  attack 
any  court  decision,  to  speak  even  mildly  of  injunc¬ 
tive  abuses  or  to  favour  a  tax  on  the  rich.  If  ever 
the  inordinately  rich  had  their  innings  they  had 
them  in  the  1896  campaign.  And  Roosevelt  threw 
himself  into  the  fight  against  “  Bryanism  ”  with 
all  the  fierce  bitterness  of  his  pugnacious  nature. 

Both  parties  came  out  of  the  campaign  with  a 
very  definite  view-point  as  to  the  relation  of  wealth 
and  business  to  politics  and  the  relation  of  courts 


54 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEY  AN 


to  all  three  and  big  business  had  its  way  from 
1896  to  1901,  enthroned  in  power  in  a  way  it  has 
never  known  since  and  will  probably  never  know 
again. 

Now  the  whole  evolution  of  Roosevelt,  there¬ 
after,  was  away  from  the  standards,  the  ideals 
and  principles  of  the  Republican  party  in  1896  and 
in  the  direction  of  that  group  which  protested 
against  the  sins  of  organized  wealth.  I  am  not 
now  speaking  of  any  double  or  single  standard  of 
money  when  I  say  this.  The  heart  of  the  financial 
problem  lay  in  the  control  of  the  money  and  credit 
of  the  country — a  control  which  Wall  Street  re¬ 
luctantly  surrendered  when  the  Federal  Reserve 
Act  was  passed  in  the  first  Wilson  administration, 
with  the  powerful  aid  of  Bryan. 

But  the  Democratic  protest  in  1896  went  to  the 
whole  social,  industrial  structure  of  our  national 
fabric  of  wealth  and  put  squarely  to  the  people  of 
the  nation  the  question  of  who  should  control  our 
wealth  and  our  business  relations.  The  result  was 
an  overwhelming  victory  for  the  powerful  financial 
forces  of  the  nation  but  with  that  we  are  not  now 
concerned.  We  are  discussing  the  relation  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt  to  that  contest  and  the  views 
of  Democrats  about  him. 

The  Democrats  all  regarded  Roosevelt  as  hope¬ 
less.  They  classed  him  with  the  most  extreme 
reactionaries.  Nothing  happened  in  the  campaign 
of  1900  to  change  our  opinion  although  the  Roose¬ 
velt  fight  for  a  tax  on  franchises  in  New  York 
ought  to  have  opened  our  eyes  somewhat.  Maybe 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  EOOSEYELT  55 


one  state  was  too  small  or  the  setting  not  to  our 
liking.  Roosevelt  gave  no  direct  symptom  of  hav¬ 
ing  seen  our  point  of  view.  He  was  in  the  closest 
communion  with  the  Wall  Street  crowd,  as  we 
called  them,  in  so  far  as  we  knew. 

Roosevelt  came  into  the  Presidency  in  1901  but 
all  through  the  campaign  of  1902  and  his  tour  of 
the  country  in  the  early  spring  of  1903  we  still 
regarded  him  as  bound  to  the  reactionaries.  He 
stood  for  the  Republican  tariff  views,  and  while 
he  began  a  campaign  of  publicity  for  the  trusts  the 
Democrats  were  all  backing  the  Bryan  remedy  in 
which  publicity  was  such  a  minor  issue  that  we 
regarded  publicity  as  a  mere  sop,  thrown  to  the 
public,  a  red  herring  drawn  across  the  trail.  We 
never  realized  that  behind  publicity  lay  a  Roose¬ 
velt  fight  against  the  very  enemies  of  the  people 
we  were  then  attacking. 

The  new  President  was  already  sounding  the 
battle  cry  but  as  we  now  look  back  upon  that  time 
we  cannot  see  why  we  then  failed  to  appreciate 
the  significance  of  his  words.  In  1902  in  a  speech 
at  Provincetown,  R.  I.,  on  August  23,  1902,  and 
found  in  “  Addresses  and  Presidential  Messages  ” 
(Putnam),  page  13,  Roosevelt  said: 

"  It  is  not  true  that  the  poor  have  grown  poorer ; 
but  some  of  the  rich  have  grown  so  very  much  richer 
that,  where  multitudes  of  men  are  herded  together 
in  a  limited  space,  the  contrast  strikes  the  onlooker 
as  more  violent  than  formerly.” 

Speaking  of  the  trusts,  he  said :  “  The  great  cor¬ 
porations  which  we  have  grown  to  speak  of  rather 


56 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


loosely  as  trusts  are  the  creatures  of  the  State,  and 
the  State  not  only  has  the  right  to  control  them,  but 
it  is  in  duty  bound  to  control  them  whenever  the 
need  of  such  control  is  shown.” 

The  presidential  campaign  of  1904  brought  no 
decided  symptom  of  change.  The  campaign  of 
that  year  was  fought  on  the  Roosevelt  personality 
and  upon  very  general  lines,  upon  old  lines,  we 
may  properly  say,  and  nothing  that  the  President 
said  in  his  campaign  speeches  or  acceptance  ad¬ 
dress  indicated  to  us  a  changed  Roosevelt.  The 
Bryan  fight  on  Parker  at  St.  Louis  in  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  convention  of  1904  made  Roosevelt’s  elec¬ 
tion  as  certain  as  anything  in  history  could  well 
be,  even  if  the  President  had  not  possessed  a  per¬ 
sonality  which  had  already  captivated  the  nation. 

In  a  speech  at  Harrisburg,  Pa.,  in  1906,  dedi¬ 
cating  the  new  Capitol  building,  Roosevelt  gave 
the  Democrats  a  surprising  and  unexpected  revela¬ 
tion.  In  a  single  phrase,  discussing  the  relation 
of  the  State  to  business  and  condemning  a  class 
government,  he  said: — “  We  want  no  mere  ‘  Wall 
Street  civilization.’  " 

The  use  of  the  phrase  “  Wall  Street  civiliza¬ 
tion  ”  was  a  real  event  in  the  current  political  his¬ 
tory  of  that  time.  It  sometimes  happens  that  a 
word  or  phrase  reveals,  mental  attitudes  of  star¬ 
tling  significance.  Unquestionably  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  Democrats  felt  that  the  President  was 
seeing  things  as  they  had  seen  them  when  they 
read  his  phrase  in  the  Harrisburg  address. 

When  did  the  Democrats  finally  wake  up  to 


A  DEMOCEATIC  VIEW  OF  ROOSEVELT  57 


Roosevelt's  progressivism?  It  was  revealed  to  us 
in  the  message  to  Congress  on  December  5th,  1905 
— the  famous  railroad  message — “  The  fortunes 
amassed  through  corporate  organization  are  now 
so  large,  and  vest  such  power  in  those  that  wield 
them  as  to  make  it  a  matter  of  necessity  to  give  to 
the  sovereign — that  is  the  Government,  which  rep¬ 
resents  the  people  as  a  whole — some  effective 
power  of  supervision  over  their  corporate  use.  In 
order  to  insure  a  healthy  social  and  individual  life 
every  big  corporation  should  be  held  responsible 
by  and  be  accountable  to  some  sovereign  strong 
enough  to  control  its  conduct.” 

“  I  do  not  believe  in  the  government  interfering 
with  private  businesses  more  than  is  necessary. 
But  neither  do  I  believe  in  the  government  flinch¬ 
ing  from  overseeing  any  work  when  it  becomes 
evident  that  abuses  are  sure  to  obtain  therein,  un¬ 
less  there  is  governmental  supervision.” 

This  message  recommended  (1)  extending 
power  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  to 
control  railroad  rates;  (2)  put  all  private  car  lines 
under  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission;  (3) 
stop  rebates;  (4)  passes;  (5)  safety  appliances; 
(6)  shorter  hours  of  labour;  (7)  employer’s  lia¬ 
bility  law. 

The  fight  began  the  day  that  message  was  read 
to  Congress.  The  message  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
Democrats  of  the  country.  Wherever  Democrats 
met,  in  cross  roads,  country  stores,  in  factories,  in 
parlours,  in  newspaper  offices,  there  was  universal 
comment  that  the  President  was  right  and  that 


58 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


he  was  leaning  our  way.  He  had  seen  the  light, 
and  was  coming  to  our  view.  Naturally  there  was 
a  lot  of  self-gratification  and  private  exultation  in 
all  this  which  was  unseemly  for  any  American  to 
indulge  in  but  for  any  one  who  appreciates  the  bit¬ 
terness  of  the  attack  (amounting  far  too  often  to 
social  ostracism)  upon  Democrats  who  followed 
Bryan  in  1896  and  the  anathemas  any  man  brought 
down  on  his  head  when  he  attacked  Wall  Street 
or  the  railroads,  the  Democrats  may  be  pardoned 
for  a  little  self-glorification  when  Roosevelt  swung 
his  artillery  around  and  opened  up  on  the  great 
railroad  magnates  and  the  “  malefactors  of  great 
wealth  ”  in  that  famous  message.  There  is  not 
time  to  delineate  every  feature  of  the  contest — 
this  is  not  written  with  that  purpose.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  from  that  day  on,  the  President  began 
a  triumphant  march  toward  the  Democratic  battle 
line  and  as  the  fight  grew  hotter  the  President’s 
utterances  grew  stronger  and  less  restrained  until, 
by  the  spring  of  1908,  he  was  talking  like  a  true 
Bryan  radical  and  behind  him  stood  four-fifths, 
yes,  seven-eighths  of  the  nation  in  his  fight  against 
a  truculent  and  powerful  Wall  Street  coalition. 
What  a  delight  to  Democrats  who  had  stood  all 
the  bitterness  of  attack  and  abuse  to  see  a  great 
Republican  President  flaying  right  and  left  among 
his  party  associates,  openly  denouncing  the  wrongs 
of  big  business  and  declaring  for  a  country  in 
which  no  man,  either  rich  or  poor,  stood  above  the 
law.  It  was  a  great  day  for  the  Democrats.  It 
was  a  greater  day  for  America.  It  may  prove  to 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  ROOSEVELT  59 


have  been  the  very  thing  and  the  one  thing  that 
will  save  us  from  a  wave  of  Bolshevism  now. 

As  the  battle  waxed  hotter  between  Roosevelt 
and  the  reactionaries  within  his  party  (and  we 
may  add  the  reactionaries  in  the  Democratic 
party)  the  President’s  utterances  grew  more 
pointed  and  stronger.  The  President  asked  for 
the  power  to  be  given  to  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  to  decide  in  a  given  case  whether  a 
given  rate  of  a  railroad  is  unreasonable  and  unjust 
and  after  investigation  to  prescribe  the  maximum 
reasonable  rate  the  road  can  charge,  the  decision 
to  stay  in  effect  until  reversed  by  the  courts.  This 
very  reasonable  request  aroused  one  of  the  bitterest 
fights  ever  known  in  legislative  history  of  the  na¬ 
tion  and  it  required  a  year  to  get  the  legislation 
desired.  In  asking  for  it  and  for  similar  legisla¬ 
tion,  the  President  said:  “  It  is  because,  in  my 
judgment,  public  ownership  is  highly  undesirable 
and  would  probably  in  this  country  entail  far- 
reaching  disaster,  that  I  wish  to  see  such  super¬ 
vision  and  regulation  of  them  in  the  interest  of  the 
public  as  will  make  it  evident  that  there  is  no  need 
for  public  ownership.” 

How  far-seeing  the  President!  How  blind  the 
owners  of  the  great  railroads  were!  The  action 
of  President  Roosevelt  in  1905  and  1906  had  much 
to  do  with  delaying  the  movement  for  government 
ownership  until  the  present  time. 

The  President  was  fighting  the  identical  forces 
that  Bryan  had  been  fighting,  only  Roosevelt 
fought  from  the  White  House  and  Bryan  from 


60 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


the  stump.  Bryan  came  to  the  President’s  aid  and 
announced  that  he  would  oppose  for  Congress  any 
representative  or  senator  who  did  not  support  the 
President  in  his  fight  with  the  railroads. 

We  next  come  to  the  message  of  1908: 

“  Too  often  we  see  the  business  community,  in  a 
spirit  of  unhealthy  class  consciousness,  deplore  the 
effort  to  hold  to  account  under  the  law  the  wealthy 
men  who  in  their  management  of  great  corporations 
whether  railroads,  street  railroads,  or  these  other 
industrial  enterprises,  have  behaved  in  a  way  that 
revolts  the  conscience  of  plain,  decent  people.” 

“  To  permit  every  lawless  capitalist,  every  law-de¬ 
fying  corporation  to  take  any  action,  no  matter  how 
iniquitous,  in  the  effort  to  secure  an  improper  profit 
and  to  build  up  privilege,  would  be  ruinous  to  the 
republic  and  would  work  the  abandonment  of  the 
effort  to  secure  in  the  industrial  world  the  spirit  of 
democratic  fair  dealing.” 

“  The  anarchist  is  the  worst  enemy  of  liberty  and 
the  reactionary  the  worst  enemy  of  order.” 


The  use  of  the  word  “  privilege  ”  in  the  above 
message  is  significant.  The  President  never  failed 
to  state  both  sides  and  to  give  the  dangerous  ten¬ 
dencies  in  both  directions  but  he  made  it  perfectly 
clear  that  he  was  with  the  movement  to  curb  law¬ 
less  wealth.  It  was  a  word  which  we  Democrats 
thought  we  had  appropriated  to  ourselves.  It  was 
a  new  word  in  Republican  councils.  It  must  have 
looked  strange  to  reactionary  Republicans  to  see 
this  word  written  on  the  banners  and  the  mottoes 
of  the  Republican  party  but  nevertheless  it  was 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OF  ROOSEVELT  61 


written  there  by  the  President,  and — we  all  hope 
— never  to  be  erased. 

The  other  significant  feature  of  the  President’s 
message  is  his  appeal  to  governmental  power  to 
right  the  abuses  of  great  wealth.  The  reformer 
is  often  obliged  to  seek  a  law;  he  must  ask  for 
a  new  law  and  for  the  extension  of  the  functions 
of  government.  The  reactionary  has  a  ready  ar¬ 
gument  for  this;  he  says  the  reformer  is  seeking 
to  make  men  good  by  law  and  that  this  thing  can¬ 
not  be  done.  The  reactionary  is  right,  within  lim¬ 
its,  but  the  persistent  demand  of  the  reformer  for 
law  and  for  widening  the  functions  of  the  State 
has  behind  it  something  more  than  an  appeal  for 
new  or  different  legislation.  It  is  based  upon 
two  fundamental  political  conceptions: 

First:  That  government  is  the  only  hoop  that 
holds  society  together  firmly,  and  if  society  seeks 
to  correct  its  wrongs  it  must  use  government  as 
the  instrument.  As  President  Wilson  said  in  his 
great  book,  “  The  State,”  “  Government  is  the  in¬ 
strument  which  society  uses  to  facilitate  its  pur¬ 
poses.” 

Secondly:  The  second  fundamental  conception 
behind  the  demand  of  the  reformer  is  that  society 
is  a  progressive,  growing  organism  that  must  adapt 
itself  to  changing  environment  both  within  and 
without  and  that  this  adaptation  is  largely  a  legis¬ 
lative  one — a  struggle  to  express  final  human  rela¬ 
tions  in  law. 

How  far  we  should  go  in  extending  and  broad¬ 
ening  the  control  of  government  over  property  is 


62 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


always  a  debatable  question.  The  reactionary  says 
that  government  should  not  interfere  with  property 
at  all.  The  Socialist  says  that  government  should 
absorb  and  control  and  own  all  private  property. 
The  true  Democrat  and  the  true  Progressive  say 
that  government  should  control  just  so  much  of 
property  as  is  necessary  to  preserve  liberty  and 
promote  the  welfare  of  mankind,  leaving  to  private 
initiative  the  widest  possible  field  of  activity. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  President  said  in  his  last 
message  to  Congress: — “Men  of  property  should 
recognize  that  they  jeopardize  the  rights  of  prop¬ 
erty  when  they  fail  heartily  to  join  in  the  effort 
to  do  away  with  abuses  of  wealth.” 

“  The  danger  to  American  democracy  lies  not 
in  the  least  in  the  concentration  of  administrative 
power  in  responsible  and  accountable  hands ;  it  lies 
in  having  the  power  insufficiently  concentrated.” 

Coming  to  the  courts,  he  said: 

“  There  are,  however,  some  members  of  the  ju¬ 
dicial  body  who  have  lagged  behind  in  their  under¬ 
standing  of  these  great  and  vital  changes  in  the  body 
politic,  whose  minds  have  never  been  opened  to  the 
new  application  of  the  old  principles  made  necessary 
by  new  conditions.  Judges  of  this  stamp  do  lasting 
harm  by  their  decisions.” 

“  It  is  far  better  from  every  standpoint  that  the 
remedy  should  come  from  within.  Break  down 
the  barriers  of  privilege  which  is  the  foe  of  right.” 

The  mistake  which  big  business  made  was  in 
ever  challenging  the  President.  He  had  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  champions  of  wealth  for  he  had 


A  DEMOCRATIC  VIEW  OP  ROOSEVELT  63 


the  superior  platform  from  which  to  fight;  he  was 
a  better  fighter  and  he  was  on  the  right  side.  In 
his  long  and  bitter  contest  with  the  powers  of 
privilege  the  President  ranged  himself  upon  the 
side  of  the  Democratic  party  as  led  by  William 
Jennings  Bryan.  He  wrote  new  mottoes  all  over 
the  banners  of  the  Republican  party,  and  when  in 
their  desperation  the  sinister  reactionary  forces 
that  had  so  long  controlled  his  party  took,  by  fraud 
and  stealth,  a  nomination  from  the  great  Republi¬ 
can  leader,  Roosevelt  broke  with  them  and  estab¬ 
lished  the  Progressive  party  of  the  nation. 

A  careful  analysis  of  the  progressive  platform 
of  1912  shows  unmistakably  two  things:  first,  it 
was  an  open  break  with  the  trust-controlled  boss- 
ridden  Republican  party;  second,  it  looked  in  the 
direction  of  the  progressive  Democratic  platforms 
written  by  Mr.  Bryan  in  1896,  1900,  and  1908. 
For  the  first  time,  two  major  parties  in  America 
were  competing  to  see  which  could  be  most  truly 
progressive.  In  fundamentals,  in  spirit,  in  ap¬ 
proach  to  great  national  issues,  the  two  platforms 
were  so  much  alike  that  the  Bryan  platforms  may 
well  be  said  to  form  the  foundation  or  source  of 
the  Progressive  platforms.  Without  the  three 
Bryan  presidential  campaigns  there  would  have 
been  no  1912  progressive  platform  and  campaign 
such  as  was  witnessed. 

Thus  do  our  leaders  contend  against  and  yet  for 
each  other;  thus  do  the  stars  in  their  courses  fight 
for  that  better  day  for  humanity  for  which  we  all 
strive. 


V 


WORLD  PEACE 

r  8  ^HE  relation  of  Mr.  Bryan  to  international 
^  peace  lies  as  much  in  the  future  as  it 
-1L  does  in  the  past — perhaps  even  more  so. 
It  may  require  centuries  for  an  exact  and  accurate 
determination  of  the  tremendous  influence  he  is 
wielding  and  will  yet  have  upon  the  question  of 
peace  between  nations.  This  question  of  peace 
between  nations  is  so  closely  interwoven  with  the 
whole  question  of  imperialism  that  it  is  difficult 
to  separate  the  two.  It  is  also  interwoven  with 
the  question  of  industrial  peace  within  the  confines 
of  every  civilized  nation  on  the  globe. 

In  this  chapter  we  propose  to  treat  of  Mr. 
Bryan’s  activities  and  influence  upon  the  questions 
of  international  and  industrial  peace.  We  start 
with  the  admitted  proposition  that  Mr.  Bryan  loves 
peace ;  that  he  loves  it  more  than  possibly  anything 
else  in  this  world;  that  he  is  essentially  a  man 
with  the  spirit  of  peace ;  that  he  is  not  a  war-loving 
individual;  that  if  a  dispute  arises  between  men 
or  classes  or  industrial  groups  or  nations,  his  in¬ 
stinct  turns  toward  a  peaceful  settlement  and  not 
toward  a  settlement  with  force  and  blood.  Such  a 
man  finds  the  source  of  his  impulses  toward  peace 
in  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  the  Sermon  on  the 

64 


WORLD  PEACE 


65 


Mount.  His  face  is  turned  away  from  the  life  of 
the  jungle,  where  might  prevails,  and  in  the  di¬ 
rection  of  the  sunlight  of  human  brotherhood. 

We  could  write  at  great  length  upon  this  spirit 
of  Mr.  Bryan  and  its  influence  upon  modern  life 
in  the  settlement  of  disputes,  in  the  effect  which  he 
has  had  in  building  up  in  America  a  sentiment  op¬ 
posed  to  war  as  a  means  of  settling  disputes. 
There  is  a  wide  field  here  which  we  cannot  touch. 
There  is  room  only  to  deal  with  concrete  sugges¬ 
tions  and  definite  activities. 

The  most  distinct  contribution  which  Mr.  Bryan 
has  made  to  the  movement  for  international  peace 
is  found  in  his  thirty  peace  treaties  negotiated 
while  he  was  Secretary  of  State.1 

In  the  heart  of  these  treaties  is  embodied  that 
principle  of  the  treaties  which  prohibits  both  of 
the  disputing  nations  from  resorting  to  arms  until 
their  grievance  has  been  investigated  by  an  impar¬ 
tial  international  tribunal,  a  world  court.  The 
plan  of  operation  embodied  in  this  principle  was 
first  suggested  by  Mr.  Bryan,  in  an  article  in  The 
Commoner  in  February,  1905,  presenting  the  idea 
that  it  be  applied  to  the  settlement  of  international 
disputes.  The  idea  took  root  at  once ;  it  began  to 
spread  and  grow.  It  was  commented  upon  in  a 
great  many  influential  journals  in  America  and 
received  the  attention  of  diplomats  at  home  and 

1  For  a  history  of  these  treaties  see  volume  issued  by  the 
Carnegie  Peace  Foundation  in  1920  entitled,  “  Treaties  for 
the  Advancement  of  Peace  Between  the  United  States  and 
Other  Powers  ”  negotiated  by  Mr.  Bryan  when  Secretary  of 
State;  with  an  introduction  by  Dr.  James  Brown  Scott. 


66 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BBYAN 


abroad.  Governmental  authorities  in  all  countries 
began  to  examine  the  proposition,  and  the  more  it 
was  examined  the  more  it  grew  in  public  favour. 
In  1906,  returning  from  his  tour  of  the  world, 
Mr.  Bryan  attended  the  International  Parlia¬ 
mentary  Union  in  London  in  July  of  that  year. 
He  had  already  presented  the  plan  at  a  banquet 
in  Japan  in  1905,  and  the  world  was  ready  for 
the  presentation  of  the  idea  in  a  larger  forum. 
At  the  Inter-Parliamentary  Union,  Mr.  Bryan  laid 
his  ideas  before  the  leaders  of  that  body,  after  it 
had  been  endorsed  by  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Banner¬ 
man,  the  Prime  Minister  of  England.  In  an 
address  upon  the  subject,  he  presented  a  resolution 
favouring  this  method  of  settling  disputes.  The 
Inter-Parliamentary  Union  at  once  went  on  record 
in  favour  of  the  Bryan  idea,  and  the  International 
Peace  Conference  held  in  New  York  at  a  later 
date  endorsed  the  plan;  a  public  meeting  in  Edin¬ 
burgh,  composed  of  leaders  of  several  bodies  of 
religious  thought  from  all  nations,  also  adopted  the 
plan. 

Later,  President  Taft  negotiated  arbitration 
treaties  with  Great  Britain  and  France;  before 
they  were  completed  Mr.  Bryan  conferred  with  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  State,  Knox,  and  a 
portion  of  his  plan  was  incorporated  in  the  treaties. 
Still  later,  President  Taft  came  to  Lincoln,  Ne¬ 
braska,  and,  with  that  breadth  and  fairness  so 
characteristic  of  him,  in  a  public  address  gener¬ 
ously  gave  Mr.  Bryan  credit  for  the  idea  which 
he  had  suggested  as  a  part  of  these  treaties.  These 


WOKLD  PEACE 


67 


treaties  failed  of  adoption,  but  not  because  of  the 
Bryan  principle  for  settling  disputes. 

In  1913  when  Mr.  Bryan  entered  President 
Wilson's  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State,  he  at  once 
prepared  to  formulate  treaties  with  all  the  nations 
of  the  world.  He  first  secured  the  approval  of 
President  Wilson,  and  then,  after  the  plan  received 
the  endorsement  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  Foreign 
Affairs  Committee  of  the  Senate,  laid  the  proposal 
for  the  treaty  embodying  these  principles  before 
the  representatives  of  practically  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth. 

Let  us  note  two  things  about  this  act  of  Mr. 
Bryan  at  this  particular  time.  First,  it  was 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  Democratic  states¬ 
man  to  seek  to  put  his  principles  into  practice  when 
he  was  once  in  an  official  position  to  do  so.  With 
Bryan  to  believe  a  thing,  is  to  believe  in  it.  If  he 
holds  convictions  upon  some  public  question,  they 
really  represent  convictions,  not  mere  passing 
fancies  or  notions  or  whims.  They  are  not  to  get 
into  office  on  and  then  to  be  laid  aside.  They  are 
positive  principles  which  he  holds  with  force  and 
earnestness.  Believing  these  principles,  he  desires 
public  office  only  that  he  may  put  them  into  effect. 
He  regards  a  political  platform  as  a  pledge  to  the 
people  which,  once  adopted,  results  in  a  binding 
contract  with  the  people.  There  is  no  uncertainty, 
no  vacillation.  He  has  the  courage  of  his  convic¬ 
tions.  This  is  the  reason  why  certain  great  special 
interests  have  fought  Mr.  Bryan  so  fiercely  and 
persistently.  They  know  that  he  will  not  change 


68 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


his  convictions  for  mere  public  position;  that  if  he 
is  in  power  he  will  seek  to  carry  out  his  principles 
and  put  them  into  law.  They  know  they  are  deal¬ 
ing  with  a  man  who  cannot  be  persuaded  to  trim 
or  to  deceive  those  who  have  relied  upon  his  prin¬ 
ciples. 

And  yet  we  have  here  a  type  of  radical  thinking 
which  is  broadly  conservative,  a  conservatism  that 
moves  forward  only  with  the  facts,  that  receives 
its  impulses  from  the  cries  of  humanity.  In  the 
light  of  the  radicalism  of  the  present  day,  we  must 
regard  Mr.  Bryan  as  the  most  conservative 
progressive  who  is  now  conspicuous  in  American 
public  life.  Secondly,  Mr.  Bryan  was  made  the 
subject  of  ridicule  on  the  part  of  many  foolish 
and  unthinking  persons.  Even  men  in  high  places 
were  inclined  to  look  upon  the  Bryan  Peace  Trea¬ 
ties  as  a  fool’s  errand.  The  late  Secretary  Frank¬ 
lin  K.  Lane,  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  the  Wil¬ 
son  Cabinet,  voiced  this  feeling  once,  saying: 

“  When  the  Wilson  administration  came  in  Mr. 
Bryan  became  Secretary  of  State,  and  true  to  his 
principles,  at  once  began  the  negotiation  of  treaties 
for  the  postponement  of  all  wars  until  a  calm  judg¬ 
ment  could  be  had  upon  their  causes.  Let  us  be 
frank.  We  of  America  did  not  take  those  efforts  of 
Mr.  Bryan  with  any  high  degree  of  seriousness.  We 
thought  him  a  noble-minded  visionary ;  anyway,  there 
was  to  be  no  need  for  such  treaties.  The  bankers 
would  not  permit  any  war  between  the  great  nations ; 
and  if  even  they  could  not  command,  *  Peace,  be 
still,’  to  the  angry  waves  of  war  the  international 
ties  that  bound  all  workingmen  would  work  the 


WORLD  PEACE 


69 


miracle.  And  so  Mr.  Bryan  went  about  trying  to 
do  good  amid  the  cynical  smiles  of  those  who  wished 
him  well.  He  was  trying  to  bring  the  nations  into 
harmony  out  of  a  common  interest  and  sympathy,  but 
it  has  been  found  that  Fear  was  the  cement  that  was 
needed.  Yet  his  plan  is  incorporated  as  the  first 
step  of  the  pyramid  of  the  present  proposed  league. 
He  left  office  boasting,  properly  boasting,  that  thirty 
nations  had  signed  the  proposed  pact.  But  Ger¬ 
many — purposeful,  waiting  Germany — was  not  one 
of  the  thirty.  The  Kaiser  saw  its  drift  and  stepped 
aside.  So  until  the  war  came  all  efforts  failed  save 
these  tentative  steps.” 

Certain  men  thought  it  was  a  weak  and  silly  at¬ 
tempt  to  do  the  impossible.  There  was  plenty  of 
open  criticism  and  laughter  and  more  laughter  in 
private.  But  almost  before  the  ink  was  dry  on 
the  treaties,  the  guns  in  Europe  began  to  thunder, 
and  then  the  world  began  to  see  that  once  more 
Mr.  Bryan  was  profoundly  practical  and  sensible, 
and  perhaps  after  all  he  had  anticipated  the  su¬ 
preme  need  of  modern  times. 

Upon  Mr.  Bryan’s  invitation,  practically  all  the 
nations  of  the  world  took  up  the  consideration  of 
his  proposed  peace  treaties.  These  treaties  were 
negotiated  with  the  following  countries:  Salvador, 
Guatemala,  Panama,  Honduras,  Nicaragua,  Neth¬ 
erlands,  Bolivia,  Persia,  Portugal,  Costa  Rica, 
Switzerland,  Dominican  Republic,  Venezuela,  Den¬ 
mark,  Italy,  Norway,  Peru,  Uruguay,  Brazil,  Ar¬ 
gentine  Republic,  Chile,  Paraguay,  China,  France, 
Great  Britain,  Spain,  Russia,  Ecuador,  Greece,  and 
Sweden.  These  governments  exercise  authority 


70 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


over  three-fourths  of  all  the  people  of  the  world. 
Since  that  time  England  has  followed  the  Bryan 
treaty  plan  with  Brazil,  and  Sweden  with  Chile, 
while  Switzerland  has  concluded  a  similar  con¬ 
vention  with  Germany. 

Another  evidence  that  the  Bryan  Treaty  Plan  is 
growing  is  found  in  a  recent  bulletin  of  the  Hague 
Tribunal  reporting  unanimous  agreement  upon  a 
plan  for  the  conciliation  of  international  disputes. 
The  report  begins: 

“  On  behalf  of  the  First  Committee,  which  is 
unanimous,  I  have  the  honour  to  submit  to  the  As¬ 
sembly  the  draft  resolution  concerning  the  procedure 
of  conciliation  in  international  disputes. 

“  The  First  Committee  was  not  able,  in  the  course 
of  its  numerous  meetings,  to  give  satisfaction  to  all 
the  hopes  and  opinions  expressed  during  its  discus¬ 
sions. 

“  Since  then  several  treaties,  which  are  known  as 
the  4  Bryan  Treaties/  have  been  concluded.  The  first 
of  these  was  a  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and 
Brazil,  signed,  I  may  add,  by  the  distinguished  M. 
da  Gama  to  whom  I  have  the  honour  and  pleasure  to 
pay  a  tribute  here.  Next  came  the  treaty  between 
Sweden  and  Chile.  In  addition,  I  may  remind  you 
that  Switzerland  and  Germany  also  have  just  con¬ 
cluded  a  convention  dealing  with  conciliation  in  in¬ 
ternational  disputes,”  etc. 

It  is  significant  that  two  great  nations  declined 
to  enter  into  these  treaties,  though  they  did  accept 
the  principle.  These  nations  were  Japan  and  Ger¬ 
many.  Had  the  idea  become  more  contagious,  had 
Germany  had  such  treaties  with  the  nations  with 


WOELD  PEACE 


71 


whom  she  was  then  plotting  to  go  to  war,  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  world  would  have  been  different;  and 
ten  millions  of  men  would  probably  be  alive  now 
and  the  world  be  three  hundred  billion  dollars 
richer.  The  fundamental  principles  of  this  treaty 
plan  are  as  follows: 

First,  that  it  should  be  applied  to  all  disputes  of 
every  kind  and  character. 

Secondly,  that  the  investigation  should  be  made  by 
a  permanent  board  whose  aid  could  be  invoked  by 
either  side  at  any  time,  and  invested  with  authority 
to  investigate  upon  its  own  initiative. 

Thirdly,  that  in  order  to  assure  fairness,  the  board 
should  consist  of  five  members,  one  chosen  by  each 
side  from  its  own  citizens,  one  chosen  by  each  from 
another  nation  and  one  chosen  by  agreement. 

Fourthly,  that  each  side  should  possess  the  right 
to  act  independently  at  the  conclusion  of  the  investi¬ 
gation  and  the  presentation  of  the  report,  the  recom¬ 
mendations  of  the  commission  enjoying  only  such 
force  as  their  intrinsic  merits  gave  them. 

The  heart  of  the  treaty  can  be  stated  in  three 
sentences : 

All  disputes  must  be  investigated: 

No  war  until  investigation  is  concluded: 

Independence  of  action  after  investigation. 

After  the  negotiation  of  these  treaties,  several 
of  the  large  South  American  nations  adopted  simi¬ 
lar  treaties  among  themselves,  but  it  remained  for 
the  conclusion  of  the  war  to  bring  a  real  vindica¬ 
tion  of  Mr.  Bryan’s  views  upon  this  question. 
President  Wilson  went  abroad  and  formulated  the 


72 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


League  of  Nations  into  the  World  Peace  Treaty 
of  Paris,  and  the  controlling  principle  of  this 
League  is  that  before  the  nations  shall  resort  to 
war  they  must  first  wait  upon  the  investigation  of 
an  impartial  tribunal.  It  was  quite  a  while  before 
the  people  of  the  world  waked  up  to  the  fact  that 
the  Bryan  principle  had  been  embodied  in  the 
Paris  Covenant  for  the  League  of  Nations,  In¬ 
deed,  it  was  not  until  President  Wilson  himself, 
with  that  keenness  of  intellect  which  so  dis¬ 
tinguishes  him  among  the  men  of  his  time,  pointed 
out  this  salutary  provision  of  the  Peace  Treaty 
and  called  it  “  the  very  heart  of  the  covenant,” 
saying  at  Indianapolis: 

“  I  am  recalling  these  circumstances,  my  fellow- 
citizens,  because  I  want  to  point  out  to  you  what 
apparently  has  escaped  the  attention  of  some  of  the 
critics  of  the  League  of  Nations,  that  the  heart  of 
the  League  of  Nations  does  not  lie  in  any  of  the 
portions  which  have  been  discussed  in  public  debate. 
The  great  bulk  of  the  provisions  of  that  covenant 
contained  these  engagements  and  promises  on  the 
part  of  the  states  which  undertook  to  become  mem¬ 
bers  of  it. 

“  That  in  no  circumstances  will  they  go  to  war 
without  first  having  either  submitted  the  question 
to  arbitration — in  which  case  they  agree  to  abide  by 
the  result,  or  having  submitted  the  question  to  dis¬ 
cussion  by  the  council  of  the  League  of  Nations,  in 
which  case  they  will  allow  six  months  for  the  dis¬ 
cussion,  and  engage  not  to  go  to  war  until  three 
months  after  the  council  has  announced  its  opinion 
upon  the  subject  under  dispute. 

“So  that  the  heart  of  the  covenant  of  the  League 


WORLD  PEACE 


73 


is  that  the  nations  solemnly  covenant  not  to  go  to 
war  for  nine  months  after  a  controversy  becomes 
acute. 

“If  there  had  been  nine  days’  discussion  Germany 
would  not  have  gone  to  war.  If  there  had  been 
nine  days  within  which  to  bring  to  bear  the  opinion 
of  the  world,  the  judgment  of  mankind  upon  the 
purposes  of  these  governments,  they  never  would 
have  dared  to  execute  these  purposes.’’ 

Public  attention  was  then  turned  to  the  treaties 
which  Mr.  Bryan  had  previously  negotiated,  em¬ 
bodying  this  same  principle.  Then  the  tide  began 
to  turn  to  Mr.  Bryan,  and  those  who  came  to  scoff 
remained  to  praise. 

The  Four-Power  Treaty,  covering  disputes  in 
the  Pacific,  is  built  upon  the  plan  of  the  Bryan 
Treaties. 

But  probably  the  most  interesting  commentary 
upon  Mr.  Bryan’s  efforts  for  peace  is  found  in  the 
attitude  of  his  great  antagonist  of  so  many  years, 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  It  is  especially  interesting 
to  select  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  a  type  of 
opposition  to  the  Bryan  idea,  not  only  because  the 
two  men  have  been  conspicuous  leaders  of  two 
great  parties  and  two  great  schools  of  American 
political  thought,  but  because  their  personal  careers 
have  been  so  dramatically  opposed  to  each  other. 

Commenting  upon  the  Bryan  peace  treaties  in 
the  New  York  Times,  October  4,  1914,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  said: 

“  The  navy  has  done  a  thousand  times  more  for 
peace  than  all  the  arbitration  treaties  and  peace  trea- 


74 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


ties  of  the  type  now  existing  that  the  wit  of  man 
could  invent. 

“  Recently,  there  have  been  negotiated  in  Wash¬ 
ington  thirty  or  forty  little  all-inclusive  arbitration 
or  so-called  ‘  peace  ’  treaties  which  represent  as  high 
a  degree  of  fatuity  as  is  often  achieved  in  these 
matters.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  they  will  do  us 
any  great  material  harm  because  it  is  absolutely  cer¬ 
tain  that  we  would  not  pay  the  smallest  attention  to 
them  in  the  event  of  their  being  invoked  in  any 
matter  where  our  interests  were  seriously  involved; 
but  it  would  do  us  moral  harm  to  break  them,  even 
although  this  were  the  least  evil  of  two  evil  alterna¬ 
tives.  It  is  a  discreditable  thing  that  at  the  very 
moment,  with  before  our  eyes  such  proof  of  the 
worthlessness  of  the  neutrality  treaties  affecting 
Belgium  and  Luxemburg,  our  nation  should  be  ne¬ 
gotiating  treaties  which  convinced  every  sensible  ob¬ 
server  abroad  that  we  are  either  utterly  heedless  in 
making  promises  which  cannot  be  kept  or  else  will¬ 
ing  to  make  promises  which  we  have  no  intention  of 
keeping.  What  has  just  happened  shows  that  such 
treaties  are  worthless  except  to  the  degree  that  force 
can  and  will  be  used  in  backing  them.  There  are 
some  well-meaning  people  misled  by  mere  words, 
who  doubtless  think  that  treaties  of  this  kind  do  ac¬ 
complish  something.” 

Now,  without  any  comment  whatever,  let  us 
see  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  said  over  his  own  signa¬ 
ture  so  late  as  1918  about  an  agreement  for  com¬ 
pulsory  arbitration  between  England  and  America. 
Bearing  in  mind  what  the  great  Republican  Presi¬ 
dent  said  about  the  futility  of  the  Bryan  Peace 
Treaties,  let  us  see  how  events  changed  his  opin¬ 
ions  and  brought  him  around  to  the  Bryan  view- 


WORLD  PEACE 


75 


point.  In  the  Review  of  Reviews  for  February, 
1919,  at  page  155,  there  is  an  article  by  Mr. 
George  Haven  Putnam  on  Roosevelt,  in  which  he 
tells  of  visiting  him  at  the  hospital  just  prior  to  his 
last  illness,  and  he  quotes  Roosevelt  verbatim  as 
follows : 

“When  I  was  in  the  White  House,  I  took  the 
ground  that  while  we  ought  always  to  maintain  good 
relations  with  Great  Britain,  it  was  really  not  pos¬ 
sible  to  agree  in  advance  that  every  issue  that  arose 
was  to  be  adjusted  by  conference  or  by  arbitration. 
.  .  .  I  have  changed  my  mind.  ...  I  hold 

that  there  are,  and  that  there  can  be,  no  possible 
issues  between  England  and  America  or  any  Eng¬ 
lish  speaking  peoples  of  the  world,  which  ought  not 
to  be  and  which  cannot  be,  adjusted,  in  the  most 
cases  by  conference,  and  in  any  extreme  difficulty  by 
arbitration.” 

Mr.  Roosevelt  then  wrote  Mr.  Putnam  a  letter 
in  order  that  the  ex-President  could  put  himself  on 
record,  and  the  following  quotation  is  taken  from 
that  letter: 

“  I  believe  that  the  time  has  come  when  we  should 
say  that  under  no  circumstances  shall  there  ever  be 
a  resort  to  war  between  the  United  States  and  the 
British  Empire,  and  that  no  question  can  ever  arise 
between  them  that  cannot  be  settled  in  judicial  fash¬ 
ion,  in  some  such  manner  as  would  be  settled  ques¬ 
tions  between  states  of  our  own  union.” 

Was  ever  vindication  more  complete  than  this? 

Does  this  language  need  any  comment?  Who 
has  changed  opinion,  Mr.  Bryan  or  Mr.  Roose- 


76 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


velt?  Who  has  come  over  to  the  other’s  view? 
We  do  not  quote  this  in  any  spirit  of  criticism  or 
derogation  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  What  Ameri¬ 
can  is  there  who  does  not  admire  the  lion-hearted 
American,  the  citizen  and  patriot  who  dared  all  in 
battle  and  who  fought  unflinchingly  for  what  he 
believed  to  be  right.  But  we  are  talking,  now, 
about  the  soundness  of  Mr.  Bryan’s  views.  We 
are  calling  attention  to  the  vindication  which 
swiftly  passing  time  is  bringing  to  him,  and  we  be¬ 
lieve  that  the  change  of  views  by  Theodore  Roose¬ 
velt  is  the  most  remarkable  personal  vindication 
which  Mr.  Bryan  has  ever  had. 


VI 


MONETARY  REFORM 

THE  question  of  how  far  the  Government 
shall  control  or  supervise  the  business  ac¬ 
tivities  of  the  nation  is  a  wide  and  de¬ 
batable  field.  It  is  a  wavering  line  of  policy  shift¬ 
ing  with  events.  Arguing  its  respective  merits 
divides  the  two  schools  of  political  philosophers — 
the  collectivists  and  individualists — as  sharply  as 
any  issue  can  divide  them. 

But  as  applied  to  the  field  of  banking,  currency 
and  finance  the  argument  is  closed — the  Govern¬ 
ment-control  advocates  have  won.  The  whole 
currency  fight  has  been  a  fight  to  extend  the  power 
of  centralized  supervision  and  control  of  the  Fed¬ 
eral  government  over  the  vast  banking  interests  of 
the  country  and  that  has  now  been  done.  Before 
the  last  act  in  the  great  drama — the  passage  of 
the  Federal  Reserve  Act  in  the  Wilson  adminis¬ 
tration,  the  banker  was  happy  in  an  uncontrolled 
“  individualism  ”  that  allowed  him  to  roam  freely 
over  the  field  of  American  business  and  finance 
except  for  minor  supervision,  regulation  and  ex¬ 
amination.  His  power  of  initiative,  of  uncon¬ 
trolled  freedom  to  do  as  he  pleased  was  so  exten¬ 
sive  that  the  most  extreme  individualist  could  only 

77 


I 


78 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


applaud  it.  The  banker  was  the  best,  most  un¬ 
controlled  individualist  in  the  American  business 
world.  He  was  therefore  the  first  to  object  and 
the  hardest  to  reconcile  to  government  supervision 
and  control  of  his  banking  activities. 

We  could  study  the  whole  currency  law  fight, 
and  Mr.  Bryan’s  relation  to  it,  from  this  angle 
alone  but  it  deserves  and  must  have  wider  treat¬ 
ment.  There  are  three  phases  of  the  fight  for 
monetary  reform  that  need  to  be  considered;  first, 
the  fight  for  bimetallism,  the  branch  banks  issue 
and  the  Federal  Reserve  Act  or  the  currency  law. 

The  vindication  which  Mr.  Bryan  has  had  in 
fighting  for  a  double  standard  of  money  is  much 
more  marked  than  the  unthinking  would  guess. 
The  logic  of  his  opponents  on  the  money  question 
runs  like  this:  his  first  platform  declared  for  free 
coinage  of  silver  at  sixteen  to  one  and  this  never 
having  been  established  his  stand  was  wrong  and 
the  fight  was  a  failure. 

This  reasoning  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  first 
money  platform  on  which  Mr.  Bryan  ran  for  the 
Presidency  was  much  more  than  a  mere  free 
coinage  plank;  it  was  a  protest  against  a  then 
existing  genuine  money  trust  in  the  very  strongest 
sense  of  that  word.  The  essence  of  the  money 
question  lay  then  and  does  now  lie  in  the  control 
of  the  currency  issues  and  credit  of  the  country 
by  a  small  ring  of  powerful  banks  centered  in  the 
heart  of  the  nation’s  metropolis — the  financial  cen¬ 
ter  of  the  world.  Upon  this  issue  Mr.  Bryan  first 
attacked  the  money  and  banking  citadel.  That 


MONETAEY  EEFOEM 


79 


he  was  right,  that  events  and  legislation  have  vin¬ 
dicated  him  cannot  be  doubted. 

In  that  fascinating  story  of  his  life,  Henry 
Morgenthau,  New  York  financier,  describes  the 
power  of  “  Wall  Street.” 

“  The  decade  from  1896  to  1906  was  the  period 
of  the  most  gigantic  expansion  of  business  in  all 
American  history  and,  indeed,  in  all  the  history  of 
the  world.  In  that  decade  the  slowly  fertilized  eco¬ 
nomic  resources  of  the  United  States  suddenly 
yielded  a  bewildering  crop  of  industries.  Vast  rail¬ 
road  systems  were  projected  and  built  into,  being 
with  magic  speed.  The  steel  industry  sprang  with 
mushroom-like  rapidity  into  a  business  employing 
half  a  million  men,  and  yielding  the  profits  of  a 
Golconda.  The  Standard  Oil  Company  spread  its 
production  and  sales  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  In 
every  field  of  manufacture,  expanding  companies 
were  brought  together  into  great  trusts  to  unify  their 
finances  and  to  stimulate  their  production. 

“  All  these  swift  growths  demanded  money :  money 
for  new  plants — money  for  expansion — money  for 
working  capital.  The  cry  everywhere  was  for  money 
— more  money — and  yet  more  money.  Wall  Street 
was  besieged  with  a  continual  supplication  for  capital 
— that  priceless  fluid  to  water  the  bursting  fields  of 
pulsing  prosperities.  It  is  an  old  law  that  he  who 
has  what  all  men  seek  may  make  his  own  terms,  and 
in  that  decade  Wall  Street  controlled  the  money  of 
America.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  financiers  of 
Wall  Street  leaped  to  a  power  greater  for  a  time 
than  the  power  of  presidents  and  kings.  No  wonder 
that  heads  were  turned,  that  power  was  abused,  that 
tyranny  developed,  and  that  finally  the  nation,  sens¬ 
ing  a  life-and-death  struggle  between  capitalism  and 
organized  government  itself,  arose  in  fear  and  anger, 


80 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


and  put  shackles  on  the  money  power  that  made  it 
again  the  servant,  and  no  longer  the  master,  of  the 
people. 

“  Let  me  trace  briefly  how  this  magic  power  was 
concentrated.  Under  the  old  banking  system,  before 
the  passage  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  the  need  for 
a  common  banking  centre  through  which  to  ‘  clear  ’ 
inter-community  and  inter-state  debits  and  credits, 
following  upon  the  exchange  of  goods  and  the  sale 
of  crops,  led  the  ‘  country '  banks  all  over  the  United 
States  to  maintain  in  some  New  York  bank  a  con¬ 
siderable  deposit  of  their  funds,  so  that  inter-bank 
transactions  could  be  settled  expeditiously  and  with¬ 
out  cost  by  the  simple  device  of  drawing  a  draft 
against  the  New  York  account.  The  sum  total  of 
these  country  bank  deposits  in  the  metropolitan  banks 
placed  in  the  control  of  the  New  York  bankers  a 
vast  reservoir  of  liquid  capital.  What  should  have 
been  done  with  this  money  was  to  use  it  as  the  basis 
for  financing  the  movement  of  crops  in  the  fall  and 
the  exchange  of  commodities  during  the  rest  of  the 
year.  What  frequently  was  done  with  it  was  to  lend 
it  to  New  York  financiers  for  speculation  in  the  price 
of  crops  and  commodities,  preventing  the  farmers 
and  country  merchants  and  small  industrials  from 
securing  money  at  the  times  they  needed  it.  An¬ 
other  use  to  which  this  reservoir  of  capital  was  put, 
was  to  lend  it  to  the  great  industrial  groups  battling 
for  supremacy  in  the  fields  of  sugar,  steel,  textiles, 
railroads  and  the  like. 

“  Thus  arose  a  natural  struggle  between  the  banks 
and  the  insurance  companies  for  the  control  of  the 
finances  of  the  country.  If  the  bankers  could  control 
the  insurance  companies,  they  would  be  masters  of 
the  situation.  If  the  insurance  companies  could  con¬ 
trol  the  banks,  then  the  insurance  company  presi¬ 
dents  would  be  the  great  men. 


MONETARY  REFORM 


81 


“What  actually  happened  was  that  the  banking 
power,  instead  of  being  all  in  the  hands  of  one  man, 
was  held  jointly  by  a  group  of  a  few  men  who,  al¬ 
though  they  fought  incessantly  and  bitterly  among 
themselves  nevertheless  often  united  for  common 
profit.” 

The  attempt  to  laugh  the  Bryan  silver  adherents 
off  the  stage  in  1896  was  given  small  shrift  by  no 
less  an  authority  than  Dr.  Albert  Shaw,  the  wise 
and  fair  editor  of  The  Review  of  Reviews,  who 
said  editorially  at  that  time: 

“  The  dispassionate  student  of  the  financial  and 
monetary  history  of  the  United  States  since  the  war 
must  conclude  that  the  great  array  of  citizens  now 
fighting  for  the  coinage  of  silver  are  contending  for 
a  cause  that  has  been  logically  evolved,  and  that  owes 
the  strength  of  its  support  to  circumstances  which 
can  be  rationally  explained.” 

In  a  later  issue  of  his  magazine  Dr.  Shaw  said, 
editorially,  that  “  The  East  ”  [and  the  financial  ex¬ 
perts  and  bankers]  “had  never  given  the  Western 
supporters  of  silver  credit  for  the  strength  of  their 
logical  and  historical  argument  for  silver.” 

When  we  couple  this  very  fair  and  entirely  cor¬ 
rect  view  with  two  more  facts  we  have  the  vindi¬ 
cation  complete.  These  two  facts  are  the  unprece¬ 
dented  and  unexpected  increase  in  the  volume  of 
gold  since  1896  (plus  the  overwhelming  proportion 
of  it  now  held  in  this  country)  and  the  fact  that 
in  spite  of  predictions  and  logical  demonstrations 
to  the  contrary  the  despised  “  fifty-cent v  silver 


82 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


dollar  rose  to  one  hundred  cents  in  all  the  markets 
of  the  world  between  1896  and  the  present  hour. 

In  1902  Mr.  Bryan  began  his  fight  on  the  branch 
banks,  contending  that  by  multiplication  of 
branches  the  banking  business  of  the  country 
would  soon  be  centered  in  the  hands  of  a  powerful 
monopoly.  His  plea  went  unheard  at  that  time 
but  the  whole  question  of  the  branch  bank  had  to 
be  met  in  American  banking  circles  some  time  or 
other  and  finally  became  acute  during  the  past  two 
years.  It  reached  a  climax  with  the  bankers  of 
the  country  at  the  time  of  the  convention  of  the 
American  Bankers  Association  in  New  York  City 
in  October  of  1922.  In  the  greatest  convention 
of  that  powerful  body  ever  held  in  its  history  the 
whole  question  of  branch  banks  was  threshed  out 
and  settled,  let  us  hope  permanently,  by  a  strong 
declaration  against  the  branch-bank  policy. 

One  of  the  really  effective  and  conservative 
journals  in  American  banking  and  finance  is  the 
American  Banker  of  New  York  and  in  discussing 
the  branch  bank  this  journal  said: 

“  National  banks  are  prohibited  from  having 
branches  by  law,  though  hitherto  some  have  gotten 
around  the  law  by  absorbing  State  Banks  and  turning 
them  and  their  branches  into  branch  offices  of  the 
national  bank. 

“  There  are  twenty-two  States  which  permit  trust 
companies  and  State-chartered  banks  to  have 
branches.  Because  such  States  as  Ohio,  Michigan 
and  California  permit  State  institutions  to  have 
branches  national  banks  are  being  crowded  off  the 
map.  So,  in  order  to  meet  the  competition  the  pres- 


MONETARY  REFORM 


83 


ent  Comptroller  has  given  a  liberal  interpretation  to 
the  National  Banking  Act,  and  has  authorized  na¬ 
tional  banks  to  open  additional  offices  in  States  that 
permit  branch  banking. 

“  To  stop  the  multiplication  of  branch  banks  ef¬ 
fectively  not  only  must  Congress  adopt  a  drastic  act 
prohibiting  them,  but  the  legislatures  of  twenty-two 
States  must  do  the  same.” 

A  protest  arose  from  the  whole  country.  Here 
are  some  examples  of  the  feeling  then  shown: 

While  most  of  the  banks  that  have  established 
branches  confine  their  activities  to  one  city,  it 
would  not  be  long,  said  the  American  'Banker, 
“  before  so-called  ‘  offices  ’  would  spread  to  other 
towns  and  then  our  independent  banking  system 
that  has  been  one  of  the  best  supports  of  the  true 
principles  of  American  democracy  would  be  gone.” 
With  this  the  New  Haven  Journal-Courier  was  in 
complete  agreement:  “  Nothing  could  be  more 
disastrous  for  the  common  welfare  than  to  have 
the  thrift  of  the  nation  so  concentrated  in  places 
of  deposit  that  the  control  of  it  would  remain  in 
the  hands  of  a  few.”  In  Texas  the  Houston 
Chronicle  declared  that  if  our  industries  “  were  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  centralized  finance  we  could 
not  help  becoming  an  enslaved  people,  no  matter 
what  our  Government  might  appear  on  paper.” 
The  Chicago  Daily  News  observed  that  they  are 
managed  by  men  “  at  a  considerable  distance  ”  who 
are  “  unfamiliar  with  local  circumstances  and  in¬ 
evitably  lacking  in  sympathy  with  local  needs.” 
The  New  York  Times  and  the  Wall  Street  Journal 


84 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


deprecate  the  possible  elimination  of  the  country 
banker  who  knows  his  customers  and  is  a  leader 
in  his  community. 

At  the  Bankers'  Convention  in  New  York 
Banker  Andrew  J.  Frame  of  Waukesha,  Wiscon¬ 
sin,  asserted  that  our  30,000  independent  banks 
“  have  done  more  to  upbuild  this  powerful  nation 
than  all  the  cream-skimming  monopolistic  banks 
have  done  for  other  nations."  Mr.  Frame  had 
reference  to  the  “  less  than  ten  great  banks  ”  which 
now  “  dominate  the  whole  banking  power  of 
France  and  Germany/*  the  five  great  banks  which 
control  “  over  eighty-six  per  cent,  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain’s  banking  power  ’’  and  Canada  where  “  some 
seventeen  central  banks  now  skim  the  cream  from 
over  4,600  branches,  leaving  only  the  skimmed  milk 
for  the  rural  and  suburban  populations.” 

But  the  final  chapter  on  banking  and  currency 
was  written  with  Mr.  Wilson  in  the  White  House 
and  Mr.  Bryan  at  his  side  in  the  Cabinet  when 
the  Federal  Reserve  Act  was  passed  by  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  Congress,  signed  by  a  Democratic  President 
and  is  now  and  forever  the  law  of  the  land. 

In  the  passage  of  this  great  constructive  meas¬ 
ure,  Mr.  Bryan  may  very  properly  claim  his  share 
of  the  credit  and  no  one  who  assisted  in  the  legisla¬ 
tion  at  that  time  will  ever  deny  it  to  him.  Mr. 
Bryan’s  advocacy  of  the  currency  law  and  espe¬ 
cially  of  that  portion  of  the  law  providing  for  a 
government-issued  and  government-controlled  cur¬ 
rency  constitutes  an  important  chapter  in  his  po¬ 
litical  work.  While  he  did  not  draw  the  currency 


MONETABY  BEFOBM 


85 


bill  he  had  given  his  views  to  Chairman  Glass  more 
than  a  year  before,  stressing  the  importance  of 
government  notes  loaned  to  the  banks  instead  of 
bank  notes  issued  by  the  government.  But  for 
some  reason  the  bill  as  introduced  did  not  reflect 
these  views  but  provided  for  bank  notes,  as  the 
banks  desired. 

But  Mr.  Bryan  had  planted  himself  on  unan¬ 
swerable  Democratic  ground  in  advocating  govern¬ 
ment  currency. 

The  Democratic  platform  of  1896  contained,  as 
its  currency  plank,  the  following: 

“  Congress  alone  has  the  power  to  coin  and  issue 
money,  and  President  Jackson  declared  that  this 
power  could  not  be  delegated  to  corporations  or  in¬ 
dividuals.  We,  therefore,  denounce  the  issuance  of 
notes  intended  to  circulate  as  money  by  the  National 
Banks,  as  in  derogation  of  the  Constitution  and  we 
demand  that  all  paper  which  is  made  legal  tender  for 
public  and  private  debts,  or  which  is  receivable  for 
duties  to  the  United  States  shall  be  issued  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  and  shall  be  re¬ 
deemable  in  coin.” 

The  platform  of  1908  said: 

“  We  believe  that  in  so  far  as  the  needs  of  com¬ 
merce  require  an  emergency  currency,  such  currency 
should  be  issued,  controlled  by  the  Federal  govern¬ 
ment  and  loaned  on  adequate  security  to  the  Na¬ 
tional  and  State  banks.” 

And  thus  armed  with  the  gospel  of  Democracy 
as  declared  in  its  platforms,  Mr.  Bryan  was  to 


86 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


bring  the  President  around  to  his  stand.  Presi¬ 
dent  Wilson  learned  of  Mr.  Bryan’s  opposition  to 
some  provisions  of  the  bill,  sent  for  him  and  ex¬ 
pressed  the  hope  that  he  would  support  the  meas¬ 
ure.  Mr.  Bryan  explained  to  the  President  that 
the  bank-note  provision  was  in  conflict  with  the 
position  of  the  Democratic  party  from  Jefferson 
down  and  in  conflict  with  the  platforms  upon 
which  he,  Mr.  Bryan,  had  been  a  candidate.  Sec¬ 
retary  Joseph  P.  Tumulty,  in  his  book,  “  Woodrow 
Wilson  as  I  Knew  Him,”  thus  describes  what  fol¬ 
lowed: 

“  In  the  committee  on  banking  and  currency  in 
both  the  Senate  and  the  House  were  many  friends  of 
Mr.  Bryan,  who  thought  that  his  radical  views  on 
the  money  question  could  be  used  as  a  rallying  point 
for  opposition  to  the  President’s  plan  for  currency 
reform.  But  those  who  counted  on  Mr.  Bryan’s 
antagonism  were  doomed  to  disappointment  and  fail¬ 
ure,  for  while  it  is  true  that  Mr.  Bryan  found  serious 
objections  to  certain  parts  of  the  bill,  when  those 
were  eliminated  he  moved  forward  with  the  Presi¬ 
dent  in  the  most  generous  fashion  and  remained  with 
him  until  the  Federal  Reserve  Act  was  made  part  of 
the  law  of  the  land.  .  .  . 

“  There  was  an  interesting  incident  in  connection 
with  the  handling  of  the  currency  legislation  that 
brought  about  what  threatened  to  be  the  first  rift 
in  the  President’s  cabinet.  It  concerned  Mr.  Bryan’s 
attitude  of  opposition  to  certain  features  of  the  bill 
as  drafted  by  the  Banking  and  Currency  Committee 
of  the  House.  My  connection  with  this  particular 
affair  arose  in  this  way:  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
discussion  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  and  while 
Mr.  Glass’s  committee  was  considering  the  matter,  a 


9 


MONETARY  REFORM  87 

messenger  from  the  White  House  informed  me  that 
the  President  wished  to  confer  with  me  in  his  study. 
As  I  walked  into  the  room,  I  saw  at  once  from  his 
general  attitude  and  expression  that  something  seri¬ 
ous  was  afoot  and  that  he  was  very  much  distressed. 
Turning  around  in  his  chair,  he  said:  ‘It  begins  to 
look  as  if  W.  J.  B.  (he  thus  referred  to  Mr.  Bryan) 
and  I  have  come  to  the  parting  of  the  ways  on  the 
Currency  Bill.  He  is  opposed  to  the  bank-note  fea¬ 
ture  of  the  bill  as  drawn.  We  had  a  long  discussion 
about  the  matter  after  Cabinet  meeting  to-day.  In 
thoroughly  kindly  way  Mr.  Bryan  informed  me  that 
he  was  opposed  to  that  feature  of  the  bill.  Of  course 
you  know,  W.  J.  B.  and  I  have  never  been  in  agree¬ 
ment  on  the  money  question.  It  is  only  fair,  how¬ 
ever,  to  say  that  in  our  discussion  Mr.  Bryan  con¬ 
ducted  himself  in  the  most  generous  way,  and  I  was 
deeply  touched  by  his  personal  attitude  toward  me. 
He  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  in  order  that  I 
might  not  be  embarrassed  in  the  handling  of  the  bill,  , 
he  was  willing  to  resign.  ...  In  the  meantime, 
Mr.  Bryan  has  promised  to  say  nothing  to  any  one 
about  the  matter  until  he  has  a  further  discussion 
with  me/ 

“  The  President  then  frankly  discussed  with  me 
the  effect  of  the  possible  resignation  of  Mr.  Bryan. 
The  President  suggested  that  I  drop  in  on  Mr.  Bryan 
very  soon  and  if  possible  casually  invite  a  discussion 
of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  telling  Mr.  Bryan  of  his 
(the  President’s)  interests  in  it,  and  how  much  he 
appreciated  Mr.  Bryan’s  personal  attitude  toward 
him. 

“  I  realized  the  seriousness  and  delicacy  of  the 
situation  I  was  asked  to  handle,  and,  being  on  the 
friendliest  terms  with  Mr.  Bryan,  I  telephoned  him 
and  invited  myself  to  his  home — the  old  Logan  Man¬ 
sion,  a  beautiful  place  in  the  northwest  part  of  Wash¬ 
ington.  I  found  Mr.  Bryan  alone  when  I  arrived. 


88 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


We  went  at  once  to  his  library  and,  in  a  boyish  way, 
he  showed  me  a  picture  which  the  President  had 
autographed  for  him  only  a  few  days  previous.  As 
we  stood  before  this  picture  Mr.  Bryan  gave  expres¬ 
sion  to  his  sincere  admiration  and  affection  for  the 
President.  He  related,  with  deep  feeling,  how  much 
Mr.  Bryan  had  enjoyed  his  contact  and  official  com¬ 
panionship  with  him  and  how  he  had  come  to  have  a 
very  deep  affection  for  him.  As  we  turned  away 
from  the  picture,  he  grew  serious  and  began  the 
discussion  of  the  very  thing  upon  which  the  Presi¬ 
dent  and  I  had  conferred  only  a  few  hours  before. 
He  freely  discussed  his  differences  with  the  President 
over  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  and  asked  me  the  di¬ 
rect  question :  ‘  Who  from  Wall  Street  has  been  dis¬ 
cussing  this  bill  with  the  President?  I  am  afraid  that 
some  of  the  President’s  friends  had  been  emphasizing 
too  much  the  view  of  Wall  Street  in  their  confer¬ 
ences  with  the  President  on  this  bill.’  I  frankly  told 
Mr.  Bryan  that  this  imputation  did  a  great  injustice 
to  the  fine  men  with  whom  the  President  conferred 
on  the  matter  of  banking  reform  and  that  I  was  cer¬ 
tain  that  the  President’s  only  intimate  advisers  in  this 
matter  were  Mr.  McAdoo,  Senator  Owen  of  Okla¬ 
homa  and  Mr.  Glass  of  Virginia,  and  that  I  personally 
knew  that  in  their  discussions  the  President  never 
argued  the  point  of  view  of  the  Eastern  financial  in¬ 
terests.  Mr.  Bryan  was  reassured  by  my  statement 
and  proceeded  to  lay  before  me  his  objections  to  the 
character  of  the  currency  issue  provided  for  in  the 
bill.  He  then  took  from  the  library  shelves  a  volume 
containing  all  the  Democratic  National  Platforms  and 
read  excerpts  from  them  bearing  upon  the  question 
of  currency  reform.  He  soon  convinced  me  that 
there  was  great  merit  in  his  contention.  Before  leav¬ 
ing  him,  I  told  him  of  my  interview  with  the  Presi¬ 
dent,  and  how  deeply  distressed  he  (the  President) 
.was  that  Mr.  Bryan  was  not  disposed  to  support  him 


MONETAEY  EEFOEM 


89 


in  the  matter  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act.  It  was 
evident  that  Mr.  Bryan  felt  a  keen  sympathy  for  the 
President,  and  that  he  was  honestly  trying  to  find  a 
way  out  of  his  difficulties  that  would  enable  him  to 
give  the  President  his  whole-hearted  support.  He 
showed  real  emotion  when  I  disclosed  to  him  the 
personal  feelings  of  the  President  toward  him,  and 
I  feel  sure  I  left  him  in  a  more  agreeable  frame  of 
mind.  I  told  him  that  I  would  talk  with  the  Presi¬ 
dent,  Mr.  McAdoo,  and  Mr.  Glass  and  report  to  him 
on  the  following  day. 

“  I  returned  to  the  President’s  study  and  reported 
to  him  in  detail  the  results  of  my  conference  with 
Mr.  Bryan.  I  called  his  attention  to  Mr.  Bryan’s 
criticism  of  the  bill  and  then  ventured  the  opinion 
that  Mr.  Bryan,  according  to  the  traditional  policy 
of  the  Democratic  party,  was  right  in  his  attitude  and 
that  I  felt  that  he  (Mr.  Wilson)  was  wrong.  For  a 
moment  the  President  showed  a  little  impatience  with 
this  statement  and  asked  me  to  point  out  to  him 
where  the  party  in  the  National  Platforms  had  ever 
taken  the  view  Mr.  Bryan  indicated  in  his  discussion 
with  me.  I  then  showed  him  the  book  Mr.  Bryan 
had  given  me  containing  the  Democratic  platforms 
and  he  read  very  carefully  plank  after  plank  on  the 
currency.  He  finally  closed  the  book,  placed  it  on 
his  desk,  and  said :  ‘  I  am  convinced  there  is  a  great 
deal  in  what  Mr.  Bryan  says/  We  then  discussed 
ways  of  adjusting  the  matter.  I  finally  suggested 
that  the  President  allow  me  to  talk  with  Mr.  Glass 
and  place  before  him  Mr.  Bryan’s  position  and  that 
he  have  Mr.  Glass  confer  with  Secretary  McAdoo 
and  Senator  Owen.  This  was  arranged.  I  had  no 
way  of  ascertaining  just  what  took  place  at  this  con¬ 
ference,  but  after  the  Cabinet  meeting  on  the  follow¬ 
ing  Tuesday  Mr.  Bryan  walked  around  to  where  the 
President  was  sitting  and  said  to  him :  ‘  Mr.  Presi¬ 
dent,  we  have  settled  our  differences  and  you  may 


90 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


rely  upon  me  to  remain  with  you  to  the  end  of  the 
fight/  The  President  thanked  him  cordially,  and 
thus  the  first  break  in  the  Cabinet  line  was  averted/’ 

It  should  be  said  that  those  who  know  of  the 
attitude  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  at  that 
time  believe  the  bill  would  not  have  passed  as  it 
was  prepared  and  ready  to  be  submitted.  Mr. 
Bryan  pointed  out  a  vital  defect  in  the  bill  and  by 
securing  a  change,  made  the  passage  of  the  bill  a 
certainty.  He  is  therefore  entitled  to  at  least  a 
share  in  the  credit  for  the  most  important  eco¬ 
nomic  measure  of  the  Wilson  administration. 
After  twenty  years  the  Chicago  platform  plank 
relating  to  the  issue  of  currency  (then  so  bitterly 
attacked  and  abused)  was  vindicated.  And  this 
was  a  plank  of  the  Chicago  platform  which  Mr. 
Bryan  himself  had  written. 

It  is  enough  to  add  that  the  currency  law  won 
only  after  the  hardest  fight  the  money  power  of 
the  United  States  ever  made  against  a  measure. 
Its  operation  has  shown  it  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
pieces  of  monetary  legislation  ever  placed  upon 
the  statute  books  of  any  nation  in  history;  it  has 
disproved  the  dire  predictions  of  the  bankers  of  the 
country  who  so  bitterly  opposed  it;  it  has  proven 
the  financial  salvation  of  America  in  the  great 
World  War  and  since  that  time.  No  one  would 
now  think  of  repealing  this  act ;  it  is  on  the  statute 
books  of  the  country  for  all  time. 


VII 

FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


IT  is  one  of  the  chief  glories  of  America  that 
we  can  achieve  our  reforms  and  change  the 
policies  and  institutions  of  the  country  when¬ 
ever  we  can  convince  a  majority  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  that  we  are  right. 

Nothing  is  more  attractive  and  fascinating  in 
all  human  history  than  this  fight  for  humanity,  for 
great  issues  of  right  and  justice;  for  public  wel¬ 
fare.  Behind  it  lies  a  wealth  of  Anglo-Saxon  his¬ 
tory,  of  early  sacrifices  of  our  forefathers,  here 
and  in  England,  for  free  speech  and  a  free  press; 
buttressing  it  are  our  constitutional  safeguards  of 
free  speech  and  press  and  assemblage  and  our  well- 
known  constitutional  modes  of  shaping  legislation 
and  changing  our  institutions.  We  are  apt  to'  lose 
sight  of  the  vital  significance  of  these  fundamental 
constitutional  safeguards  if  we  merely  give  them 
stereotyped  praise  or  recite  them  by  rote.  Their 
real  significance  does  not  become  striking  until  we 
see  them  in  some  dramatic  historic  setting ;  a  Pym 
or  a  Hampden  defying  a  tyrant  Stuart;  a  Crom¬ 
well  striking  for  human  rights ;  a  Garrison  fighting 
for  the  slave  with  weapons  of  the  press ;  asserting 
his  undying  right  to  speak  against  human  wrong; 
a  Lincoln  in  Cooper  Union,  declaring  that  “  right 
makes  might  ”  and  thus  laying  down  the  rule  of 

91 


92 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEY  AN 


right  for  all  future  generations  of  men.  In  crises 
like  these  we  see  the  value  of  constitutional  safe¬ 
guards  and  we  thank  our  forefathers  for  erecting 
and  adopting  them. 

In  other  words,  it  takes  “  reforms  ”  and  “  re¬ 
formers  ”  to  truly  show  the  permanent  values  un¬ 
derlying  that  remarkable  fabric  of  human  right 
and  political  justice  known  as  the  American  Con¬ 
stitution.  In  the  light  of  American  history  one 
wonders  how  organizations  can  ever  spring  into 
being,  under  our  flag,  which  advocate  sabotage  or 
the  torch  or  bomb.  One  wonders,  too,  why  free 
speech  is  ever  curtailed  for  a  single  moment  in 
America.  It  is  the  greatest  safety  valve  in  the 
world  and  it  is,  moreover,  a  constitutional  safety 
valve. 

This  is  our  approach,  then,  to  a  consideration 
of  Mr.  Bryan’s  relation  to  four  great  reforms  in 
American  life — the  election  of  Senators,  the  In¬ 
come  Tax,  Prohibition  and  Suffrage  Amendments 
to  our  Federal  Constitution.  Mr.  Bryan  would  be 
the  very  last  man  to  claim  undue  precedence  in 
advocating  these  reforms.  He  above  all  men  rec¬ 
ognizes  and  pays  tribute  to  the  early  pioneers  who 
laid  the  foundations  for  our  later  successes  along 
moral  lines.  But  that  he  contributed  powerful  sup¬ 
port  and  was  a  dynamic  influence  in  the  adoption 
of  these  four  amendments  no  American  of  his 
generation  will  deny. 

Popular  Election  of  Senators 

Mr.  Bryan  began  his  work  for  Constitutional 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


93 


reform  with  the  advocacy  of  the  popular  election 
of  Senators.  His  Congressional  platform  in  1890, 
on  which  he  first  ran  for  Congress,  contained  the 
following  plank:  “We  favour  an  amendment  to 
the  Federal  Constitution  which  will  take  the  elec¬ 
tion  of  United  States  Senators  from  the  state 
legislatures  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  the  people 
where  it  belongs.,,  In  1892,  during  his  first  term 
in  Congress,  he  voted  for  the  resolution  proposing 
such  an  amendment.  This  was  the  first  resolution 
ever  passed  by  either  House  on  this  subject. 
Andrew  Johnson  recommended  this  change  in  a 
message  to  Congress: 

“  Experience  seems  to  have  established  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  an  amendment  of  that  clause  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  which  provides  for  the  election  of  Senators  to 
Congress  by  the  legislatures  of  the  several  states.  It 
would  be  more  consistent  with  the  genius  of  our  form 
of  government  if  the  Senators  were  chosen  directly 
by  the  people  of  the  several  states.  The  objections 
to  the  election  of  Senators  by  the  legislatures  are  so 
palpable  that  I  deem  it  unnecessary  to  do  more  than 
submit  the  proposition  for  such  an  amendment  with 
the  recommendation  that  it  be  offered  to  the  people 
for  their  judgment.”  (From  “  Messages  and  Papers 
of  the  Presidents.”  Vol.  VI,  p.  642.  From  Message 
of  President  Andrew  Johnson,  to  Congress,  July  18, 
1868.) 

About  1882  James  B.  Weaver,  then  a  member 
of  Congress  from  Iowa,  introduced  a  resolution 
proposing  an  amendment  of  this  kind.  Bryce  men¬ 
tions  this  resolution  in  his  “  American  Common¬ 
wealth.” 


94 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


The  Senate  took  no  action  upon  the  resolution 
passed  in  1892  but  it  was  introduced  again  and 
passed  through  the  next  Congress.  These  two 
Congresses  were  Democratic.  In  1894  the  Re¬ 
publicans  obtained  control  of  Congress  and  two 
Congresses  went  by  before  the  resolution  was 
again  passed  by  the  House.  It  was  again  ignored 
by  the  Senate.  After  that,  two  other  Republican 
Houses  passed  a  similar  resolution  and  still  the 
Senate  refused  to  concur. 

In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Bryan  had  secured  the  in¬ 
corporation  in  the  Democratic  platform  of  1900  a 
plank  favouring  popular  election  of  Senators. 
This  plank  was  reiterated  in  1904,  1908,  and  1912. 
The  Democratic  platform  of  1900  said,  “  We 
favour  an  amendment  to  the  Federal  legislation 
providing  for  the  election  of  United  States  Sena¬ 
tors  by  direct  vote  of  the  peopled 

Platform  of  1908:  “  We  favour  the  election  of 
United  States  Senators  by  direct  vote  of  the  people 
and  regard  this  reform  as  the  gateway  to  other 
national  reforms.” 

In  1904  Senator  La  Follette  introduced  a  reso¬ 
lution  in  the  Republican  National  Convention  en¬ 
dorsing  the  popular  election  of  Senators,  but  his 
plank  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  seven  to  one. 

In  1910  the  Democrats  again  secured  control  of 
Congress  and  a  resolution  proposing  this  amend¬ 
ment  was  passed  by  the  House  for  the  sixth  time 
(the  first,  second,  and  sixth  Congresses  were  Dem¬ 
ocratic;  the  third,  fourth  and  fifth  were  Republi- 
ca n)«  This  time  the  Senate  yielded  and  the 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


95 


Amendment  was  submitted  to  the  states.  It  was 
ratified  within  a  short  time  and  it  became  the  very 
pleasant  duty  of  Mr.  Bryan  to  affix  his  signature 
to  the  last  document  necessary  to  make  this  amend¬ 
ment  a  part  of  the  Constitution.  This  was  done 
in  April,  1913,  soon  after  he  entered  the  State 
Department. 

Here  is  the  record.  When  a  young  man  of 
thirty  he  began  the  championship  of  this  important 
step  toward  more  popular  government — a  step  that 
brought  the  Senate  into  harmony  with  our  theory 
of  government.  He  began  advocating  the  reform 
two  years  before  it  was  ever  endorsed  by  any 
Congress.  He  voted  for  it  in  the  House  the  first 
time  it  passed  a  branch  of  Congress;  he  wrote  it 
into  four  national  platforms  of  his  party  and  then 
signed  the  proclamation  that  published  the  fact  that 
it  had  been  adopted  as  part  of  the  Constitution. 

At  first  the  reform  attracted  little  attention — it 
never  did  secure  the  endorsement  of  a  Republican 
national  platform.  It  was  even  defeated,  as  above 
stated,  in  a  Republican  National  platform  twelve 
years  after  it  was  twice  endorsed  by  Democratic 
Congresses  and  after  it  had  been  twice  endorsed 
by  Republican  Congresses.  Now  it  is  a  part  of 
the  Constitution  and  there  to  stay.  This  may  be 
called  the  first  vindication  of  an  important  reform 
with  which  Mr.  Bryan  was  identified — was,  in 
fact,  an  influential  factor. 

The  Income  Tax  Amendment 

During  Mr.  Bryan’s  second  term  of  Congress  he 


96 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


was  a  member  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee 
(as  he  was  also  during  his  first  term).  The  Wil¬ 
son  Bill  contained  an  income  tax  clause.  Mr. 
Bryan  was  on  the  sub-committee  (composed  of 
Congressman  McMillan  of  Tennessee,  Congress¬ 
man  Montgomery  of  Kentucky,  and  Mr.  Bryan) 
which  prepared  the  income  tax  part  of  the  law. 
During  the  discussion  in  the  committee  it  became 
known  that  President  Cleveland  was  not  favour¬ 
able  to  the  income  tax,  and  that  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  John  G.  Carlisle,  did  not  want  it  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  law  with  the  tariff  schedules.  Fear¬ 
ing  that  it  might  be  vetoed  if  it  was  passed  sepa¬ 
rately,  Mr.  Bryan  circulated  a  petition  calling  a 
caucus  and  in  the  caucus  secured  the  passage  of  a 
resolution  making  the  income  tax  law  a  part  of 
the  revenue  bill.  This  insured  its  passage.  The 
President  allowed  the  revenue  bill  to  become  a  law 
without  his  signature. 

Mr.  Bryan  took  charge  of  the  debate  on  the  in¬ 
come  tax  portion  of  the  bill  on  the  floor  and  an¬ 
swered  the  leading  argument  from  the  other  side 
presented  by  the  late  Bourke  Cockran.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  refer  to  the  history  of  the  income  tax 
before  the  court,  resulting  in  nullification  of  the 
law  at  a  second  hearing  of  the  case.  Justice  Jack- 
son  was  not  present  at  the  first  hearing  when  the 
vote  stood  four  to  four,  thus  affirming  the  validity 
of  the  law.  At  a  rehearing  Justice  Jackson  voted 
in  favour  of  sustaining  the  income  tax  law  but  one 
of  the  other  justices  had  changed  his  mind  between 
the  two  hearings  of  the  case  and  his  vote  turned 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


97 


the  decision  and  the  law  was  declared  unconsti¬ 
tutional. 

Bryan’s  platform,  the  Chicago  platform  of  1896, 
contained  a  plank  on  the  income  tax  and  the  plat¬ 
forms  of  1900  and  1908  also  declared  for  an  in¬ 
come  tax;  the  plank  in  1908  declared  specifically 
for  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  authorizing 
an  income  tax.  In  1904  Mr.  Bryan  made  a  fight 
for  such  a  plank  in  the  Resolutions  Committee  of 
the  Parker  convention  but  failed.  Some  of  the 
committee  insisted  that,  though  they  favoured  an 
income  tax,  they  thought  it  unwise  to  declare  for 
it  in  that  campaign  when  they  were  making  a  spe¬ 
cial  bid  for  the  New  York  vote. 

In  the  campaign  of  1908  Mr.  Bryan’s  platform 
declared  in  favour  of  an  income  tax  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  while  Candidate  Taft  con¬ 
tended  that  the  Amendment  was  not  necessary,  ex¬ 
pressing  the  opinion  that  an  income  tax  could  be 
secured  by  statute  whenever  it  became  desirable. 
Mr.  Taft  was  elected  and  then  recommended  the 
submission  of  an  income  tax  amendment.  It  is 
believed  that  he  thought  its  submission  necessary 
to  defeat  a  statutory  income  tax  which  was  agreed 
upon  by  the  Democrats  and  progressive  Republi¬ 
cans  as  an  amendment  to  the  Aldrich  bill.  Here  we 
have  a  Republican  President  taking  up  Mr.  Bryan’s 
plan  to  defeat  the  plan  proposed  by  this  very  same 
Republican,  viz.,  a  statutory  income  tax. 

The  amendment  was  ratified  and  during  the  first 
term  of  Mr.  Wilson’s  administration  an  income 
tax  law  was  passed  in  which  the  maximum  rate  was 


98 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BKYAN 


fixed  at  ten  per  cent. — five  times  as  high  as  the 
two  per  cent,  rate  in  the  law  of  1894.  During  the 
war  the  surtaxes  carried  the  income  tax  rate  to 
sixty-five  per  cent,  on  the  largest  incomes. 

Here  we  have  the  second  Constitutional  reform 
in  the  securing  of  which  Mr.  Bryan  took  a  promi¬ 
nent  part.  While  the  fight  for  the  income  tax 
amendment  began  several  years  after  the  fight  be¬ 
gan  for  the  election  of  Senators  by  direct  vote,  it 
was  ratified  two  months  earlier — in  February, 
1913.  If  ratification  had  been  delayed  for  two 
months,  Mr.  Bryan  would  have  had  the  honour 
of  announcing  the  ratification  of  this  amendment 
as  he  did  the  ratification  of  the  Seventeenth 
Amendment. 

In  what  then — may  we  ask — does  the  vindica¬ 
tion  of  Mr.  Bryan  consist?  In  these  two  things: 
that,  having  begun  the  fight  almost  single-handed, 
for  these  two  great  reforms  he  waged  a  successful 
fight,  secured  the  adoption  of  the  two  great  meas¬ 
ures  through  amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion,  convinced  his  opponents  and  the  nation  that 
he  was  right  and  wrote  his  ideas  into  the  funda¬ 
mental  law  of  the  land ;  second,  in  the  fact  that  the 
two  measures,  once  adopted,  are  now  admittedly 
valuable  reforms,  that  they  have  secured  the  ap¬ 
proval  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  citizens  of  this 
country  and  that  their  repeal  is  not  seriously  dis¬ 
cussed  by  any  one  or  by  any  party. 

Without  the  income  tax  this  nation  could  not 
have  made  wealth  pay  its  just  share  of  the  cost 
of  the  war  or  of  government.  The  income  tax, 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


99 


like  popular  election  of  Senators,  has  come  to  stay 
and  its  wisdom  and  beneficence  will  grow  upon  the 
matured  judgment  of  the  nation  through  the  coming 
years.  Mr.  Bryan  may  well  rest  his  case  for 
vindication  upon  these  two  great  measures  alone. 

Woman’s  Suffrage 

Take  down  from  your  library  shelf  a  history  of 
the  life  of  Frances  E.  Willard  or  Anna  Howard 
Shaw.  Read  it  carefully  and  thoughtfully,  for  it 
bears  the  moral  impress  of  some  of  the  greatest 
of  our  American  women.  It  is  more  than  that; 
it  is  a  reformer’s  epic.  It  vindicates  our  American 
theory  of  government  as  nothing  else  can  do  for  it 
describes  the  early  beginnings  of  the  great  fight 
to  make  the  nation  dry  and  to  give  the  ballot  to 
women.  No  one  can  read  these  life  histories  and 
be  discouraged  over  the  early  stages  of  any  reform. 
There  is  tonic  in  these  pages,  not  alone  in  con¬ 
templating  the  life  of  these  remarkable  women, 
but  also  in  contemplating  the  marvellous  power  of 
right  to  triumph  over  all  manner  of  vicious  in¬ 
fluences,  over  wrong-thinking  majorities;  over  ele¬ 
ments  that  profit  from  wrong  and  hate  the  right. 
It  ought  to  rob  every  un-American  group  in  our 
country  of  their  desire  to  win  by  any  other  method 
than  the  sound  constitutional  method  of  convinc¬ 
ing,  by  reason,  a  majority  of  their  fellow-country¬ 
men. 

Be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  the  American  women 
that  they  won  their  fight  for  the  ballot  by  clean, 
sane,  conservative,  American  methods. 


100 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


No  sooner  had  suffrage  been  thrust  upon  the 
national  stage  where  it  clearly  occupied  a  pre¬ 
eminent  place  than  Mr.  Bryan  took  his  stand  upon 
the  issue,  and  it  was  a  characteristic  message  he 
gave.  “  I  shall  claim  no  privileges  for  myself  that 
I  do  not  ask  for  my  wife,”  he  announced. 

In  1914  the  suffrage  amendment  was  submitted 
to  the  voters  of  Nebraska,  and  Mr.  Bryan’s  partici¬ 
pation  in  the  suffrage  fight  began  when  this  amend¬ 
ment  was  submitted.  He  canvassed  the  state  in 
the  interest  of  the  amendment  and  between  1914 
and  1916  he  spoke  by  invitation  in  a  number  of 
states  where  the  amendment  was  an  issue.  In 
1916  he  campaigned  in  nineteen  Western  states, 
several  of  which  had  adopted  woman  suffrage.  In 
all  of  his  speeches  Mr.  Bryan  defended  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  position  on  the  subject  which  went  a  little 
further  than  the  Republican  National  platform 
and  also  the  attitude  of  the  President  on  that  sub¬ 
ject.  While  Mr.  Bryan  did  all  that  he  could  by 
speeches  and  through  his  paper  for  the  suffrage 
amendment,  his  contribution  to  the  adoption  of 
this  amendment  was  not  as  great,  relatively,  as  to 
the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  amend¬ 
ments.  But  it  is  characteristic  of  Mr.  Bryan  that 
his  support  of  a  proposition  is  either  all  or  noth¬ 
ing;  it  is  whole-hearted  if  given  at  all.  There  is 
nothing  negative  in  his  make-up  nor  in  his  advocacy 
of  measures.  If  he  favours  a  proposal  the  whole 
country  will  know  where  he  stands  and  precisely 
the  same  may  be  said  if  he  opposes  a  measure. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  over  thirty-three 


FOUR  GEEAT  REFOEMS 


101 


years  of  national  fame  and  on  all  national  issues 
raised  in  that  period  not  one  of  his  fellow-country¬ 
men  has  ever  been  in  doubt  as  to  where  he  stood ; 
no  one  has  ever  had  to  ask  what  his  words  meant 
nor  has  he  ever  been  accused  of  “  pussy-footing  ” 
or  “  trimming  ”  upon  any  issue.  This  is  a  certifi¬ 
cate  of  straightforwardness,  of  genuine  character 
that  has  endeared  him  to  the  American  electorate, 
regardless  of  party. 

The  Mother  Argument 

The  strongest  argument  ever  advanced  by  Mr. 
Bryan  in  behalf  of  suffrage  is  his  “  mother  argu¬ 
ment,”  as  made  in  his  Washington  speech  in  1916, 
and  it  is  reproduced  here  because  it  presents  the 
subject  in  what  he  regarded  as  the  strongest  light. 
Said  he: 

“  The  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  woman  suf¬ 
frage  is  the  mother  argument.  I  love  my  children 
— as  much,  I  think,  as  a  father  can;  but  I  am  not 
in  the  same  class  with  my  wife.  I  do  not  put  any 
father  in  the  same  class  with  the  mother  in  love 
for  the  child.  If  you  would  know  why  the  mother’s 
love  for  a  child  is  the  sweetest,  tenderest,  most  last¬ 
ing  thing  in  the  world,  you  will  find  the  explanation 
in  the  Bible :  4  Where  your  treasures  are  there  will 
your  heart  be  also.’ 

“  The  child  is  the  treasure  of  the  mother ;  she  in¬ 
vests  her  life  in  the  child.  When  the  mother  of  the 
Gracchi  was  asked:  ‘Where  are  your  jewels?’  she 
pointed  to  her  sons.  The  mother’s  life  trembles  in 
the  balance  at  the  child’s  birth,  and  for  years  it  is 
the  object  of  our  constant  care.  She  expends  upon 
it  her  nervous  force  and  energy ;  she  endows  it  with 


102 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


the  wealth  of  her  love.  She  dreams  of  what  it  is  to 
do  and  be — and,  oh,  if  all  of  a  mother’s  dreams  only 
came  true,  what  a  different  world  this  would  be ! 
The  most  pathetic  struggle  that  this  earth  knows  is 
not  the  struggle  between  armed  men  upon  the  battle 
field ;  it  is  the  struggle  of  a  mother  to  save  her  child 
when  wicked  men  set  traps  for  it  and  lay  snares  for 
it.  And  as  long  as  the  ballot  is  given  to  those  who 
conspire  to  rob  the  home  of  the  child  it  is  not  fair — 
no  one  can  believe  it  fair — to  tie  a  mother’s  hands 
while  she  is  trying  to  protect  her  home  and  save  her 
child.  If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  justice,  surely  a 
mother  has  a  just  claim  to  a  voice  in  shaping  the 
environment  that  may  determine  whether  her  child 
will  realize  her  hopes  or  bring  her  gray  hairs  in 
sorrow  to  the  grave. 

“  Because  God  has  planted  in  every  human  heart 
a  sense  of  justice,  and  because  the  mother  argument 
makes  an  irresistible  appeal  to  this  universal  sense, 
it  will  finally  batter  down  all  opposition  and  open 
woman’s  pathway  to  the  polls.” 


Mr.  Bryan  felt  that  in  adopting  woman  suffrage 
he  would  also  greatly  aid  prohibition  and  help  to 
promote  world  peace.  He  regarded  the  saloon  and 
war  as  the  two  greatest  enemies  of  the  home.  In 
this  position  he  is  seeing  his  views  vindicated  with 
a  larger  and  yet  larger  number  of  the  American 
people  turning  against  war  as  a  means  of  settling 
international  difficulties,  and  with  an  almost 
unanimous  voice  against  the  return  of  the  saloon. 

Everywhere  a  larger  percentage  of  women  than 
men  support  prohibition  and  everywhere  the  senti¬ 
ment  against  war  has  been  stronger  among  women 
than  among  men. 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


103 


Prohibition 

Mr.  Bryan  occupies  a  unique  place  among  the 
advocates  of  Prohibition.  He  would  doubtless 
modestly  defer  to  that  brave  and  numerous  band 
of  early  pioneers  on  this  issue  who  fought  its  bat¬ 
tles  for  a  half  century  before  the  present  genera¬ 
tion  came  into  being.  To  those  early  pioneers  all 
of  the  present-day  prohibitionists  must  give  place. 

Mr.  Bryan  has,  however,  two  distinctions  re¬ 
garding  Prohibition  and  the  vindication  that  is 
coming  daily  to  him  in  advocating  this  reform  and 
no  one  will  ever  seek  to  rob  him  of  them;  in  the 
first  place  he  was  the  first  Presidential  candidate 
of  either  of  the  two  great  parties  who  ever  took  a 
stand  upon  National  Prohibition  prior  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment.  In  the 
second  place  he  was  the  first  national  political 
character  to  take  a  stand  for  prohibition  and  throw 
the  weight  of  his  great  influence  and  matchless 
eloquence  in  favour  of  this  great  reform.  These 
two  historic  facts  give  Mr.  Bryan  a  high  place 
among  those  to  whom  must  be  given  credit  for  the 
adoption  of  National  Prohibition.  Compared, 
then,  with  any  other  of  the  national  political  lead¬ 
ers  and  their  stand  on  prohibition  Mr.  Bryan  may 
be  counted  a  pioneer  in  the  fight. 

Mr.  Bryan  has  been  a  total  abstainer  from  youth 
but  his  fight  against  the  saloon  did  not  begin  ac¬ 
tively  until  1910.  When  the  question  was  up  in 
Nebraska  in  1890  he  favoured  a  high  license  law 
that  had  recently  been  enacted  in  Nebraska  in 


104 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


preference  to  State  Prohibition  as  then  proposed — 
the  adjoining  states  of  Kansas  and  Iowa  had  pro¬ 
hibition  at  that  time  but  made  no  pretense  of  en¬ 
forcing  it.  For  twenty  years  after  that  the  ques¬ 
tion  was  not  an  issue  in  the  nation  or  in  Nebraska. 

About  1908  county  option  began  to  be  suggested 
as  an  improvement  over  town  option  as  it  then 
existed  in  Nebraska.  Mr.  Bryan  had  been  from 
1896  an  advocate  of  the  initiative  and  referendum. 
The  Nebraska  platform  of  1908  declared  for  the 
initiative  and  referendum  and  the  Democratic  leg¬ 
islature  elected  that  year  would  have  submitted  the 
amendment  providing  for  the  initiative  and  refer¬ 
endum  but  for  the  fact  that  a  few  Democratic 
Senators,  controlled  by  local  liquor  interests,  re¬ 
pudiated  the  platform.  Mr.  Bryan  found  that  an 
outside  liquor  organization  was  attempting  to  con¬ 
trol  the  nomination  of  Democratic  Senators  with  a 
view  to  secretly  pledging  them  against  the  initiative 
and  referendum.  He,  therefore,  entered  the  fight, 
informing  the  representatives  of  the  breweries  that, 
if  they  would  not  permit  the  adoption  of  the  initia¬ 
tive  and  referendum  lest  it  should  result  in  the 
submission  of  county  option,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  pass  county  option  first  in  order  to  clear  the  way 
for  the  initiative  and  referendum. 

He  was  absent  from  Nebraska  on  a  trip  to  South 
America  during  the  early  part  of  the  year  and  was, 
therefore,  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  fight  but  he 
raised  the  standard  against  the  domination  of 
politics  by  the  liquor  traffic  and  carried  the  fight 
to  the  state  convention  where  he  was  defeated,  and 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


105 


temporarily  lost  the  leadership  of  his  party  in 
Nebraska. 

This  fight  within  his  own  party  over  county 
option  marked  the  real  beginning  of  Bryan’s  fight 
to  make  America  dry.  It  was  an  interesting  and 
significant  contest.  The  liquor  interests  with  their 
usual  keenness  recognized  the  danger  to  their  in¬ 
terests  in  the  opposition  of  Bryan. 

They  determined  to  defeat  him  in  his  own  state, 
to  destroy  his  leadership  in  the  Democratic  party 
in  Nebraska  and  to  destroy  him  as  a  national  fig¬ 
ure  in  his  own  party  as  well.  They  openly  an¬ 
nounced  this  as  their  avowed  purpose. 

Mr.  Bryan  accepted  their  challenge.  He  pub¬ 
lished  their  threat  in  a  conspicuous  manner  and 
announced  that  “  if  the  liquor  interests  can  make 
good  their  threat  to  destroy  me  politically,  my 
death  will  be  a  warning  to  the  fathers  and  mothers 
of  the  power  of  this  foe  to  the  home  and  to  Ameri¬ 
can  life.” 

The  fight  was  on.  It  is  ended  now  but  instead 
of  Bryan  being  politically  dead  and  the  liquor  in¬ 
terests  standing  triumphant  over  the  body  of  their 
fallen  foe  we  find  the  liquor  interests  banished 
from  American  life  and  Mr.  Bryan  an  active  and 
indispensable  figure  in  the  councils  of  his  party  in 
the  nation. 

Two  years  later  the  liquor  interests  opposed  him 
as  delegate  to  the  national  convention  but  he  was 
elected  in  spite  of  this  opposition,  running  about 
five  thousand  ahead  of  his  ticket.  After  his  re¬ 
turn  from  Baltimore  the  liquor  interests  attempted 


106 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


to  repudiate  his  action  at  Baltimore.  In  this  they 
failed  and  Mr.  Bryan’s  course  was  endorsed  by  the 
state  convention.  From  this  time  on  the  fight  grew 
more  and  more  bitter.  In  the  campaign  of  1914, 
he  visited  several  states  in  which  the  prohibition 
question  was  an  issue.  He  refused  to  be  drawn  into 
the  discussion  of  the  question  because  he  was  help¬ 
ing  to  secure  a  Democratic  Congress  in  order  that 
the  program  of  the  Wilson  administration  might  be 
completed  during  the  second  half  of  his  term.  He 
found,  however,  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  a 
hearing  on  other  issues  where  the  people  were  vot¬ 
ing  on  prohibition  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
campaign  he  announced  through  his  paper  that  he 
would  favour  Prohibition  wherever  it  was  an  issue. 
In  1915  he  spoke  for  the  prohibition  amendment 
in  Ohio  and  after  that  in  other  states  but  did  not 
favour  making  it  a  national  issue  until  after  the 
campaign  of  1916  on  the  ground  that  without  be¬ 
ing  able  to  secure  the  adoption  of  the  amendment 
the  prohibition  issue  would  divert  attention  from 
the  economic  questions  the  people  were  consider¬ 
ing.  In  1916  state  prohibition  was  an  issue  in 
Nebraska  and  he  canvassed  the  state  for  it.  The 
Wets  defeated  him  for  delegate  to  the  Democratic 
National  Convention  that  year. 

As  soon  as  the  campaign  of  1916  was  over  he 
announced  himself  ready  to  aid  in  the  securing  of 
national  amendment  and  proceeded  to  support  this 
amendment  in  speeches  throughout  the  United 
States.  When  it  was  submitted  he  spoke  for  rati¬ 
fication  in  a  number  of  states.  It  so  happened  that 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


107 


Nebraska  was  the  thirty-sixth  state  to  ratify;  thus., 
by  a  happy  accident,  his  own  state  completed  the 
requirement  of  the  Constitution  and  made  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  a  part  of  the  organic  law 
of  the  land. 

It  was  upon  the  submission  by  Congress  of  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  to  the  states  that  Mr. 
Bryan  received  what  is  perhaps  one  of  the  finest 
recognitions  of  his  service  to  the  cause  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  that  has  ever  come  to  him.  Recognizing  his 
invaluable  services  in  influencing  Congressmen  to 
vote  for  submitting  the  amendment  to  the  states, 
the  national  leaders  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of 
America  presented  him  with  the  following  ad¬ 
dress  : 

“  Hon.  William  Jennings  Bryan, 

Miami,  Florida. 

“Dear  Mr.  Bryan:  As  general  superintendent, 
legislative  superintendent  and  legislative  committee 
of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America,  we  wish  to 
express  to  you  our  very  great  appreciation  of  the 
service  you  have  rendered  in  helping  to  secure  the 
adoption  by  Congress  of  the  resolution  for  national 
prohibition. 

“  As  democracy’s  greatest  prophet  of  reform  you 
have  many  times  rendered  conspicuous  service  for 
the  right;  never  more  so  than  in  the  present  case. 
During  all  the  recent  months  leading  up  to  the  final 
battle,  your  voice  has  sounded  the  high  note  of  ideal¬ 
ism  in  this  fight  for  humanity,  has  inspired  your 
friends  to  confidence  and  enthusiasm,  and  has  sent 
the  shock  of  alarm  throughout  the  ranks  of  the  liquor 
forces.  This  period  of  continued  and  distinguished 
service  found  fit  completion  in  your  great  address 


108 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


last  Wednesday  night  at  the  Metropolitan  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  and  the  overflow  meeting  at  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  before  the  annual  con¬ 
vention  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America;  in 
your  return  to  the  national  capital  for  the  final  strug¬ 
gle  in  the  House,  and  in  your  history-making  and 
memorable  reply  to  Mr.  Gompers  which,  added  to 
your  unquestioned  influence  with  the  members  of 
the  Congress,  did  so  much  to  put  the  cause  of  temper¬ 
ance  and  prohibition  ‘  over  the  top/ 

“  But  we  must  not  undertake  to  recount  your  serv¬ 
ices.  We  wish  only  on  behalf  of  ourselves  and  our 
constituency  to  express  to  you  our  heartiest  con¬ 
gratulations  and  good  will  and  our  deepest  sense  of 
appreciation  for  your  great  service. 

“  Generations  yet  unborn  will  rise  up  to  call  you 
blessed.  Women  and  children  without  number  who 
have  had  to  sit  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  robbed  of 
their  right  and  despoiled  of  their  best  treasures  by 
the  greedy,  conscienceless,  lecherous  traffic  in  strong 
drink,  will  not  cease  to  thank  God  that  He  sent  you 
to  help  proclaim  the  day  of  their  deliverance. 

“  May  your  ‘  bow  abide  in  strength/ 

“  Sincerely  and  respectfully  yours, 

“  P.  A.  Baker,  general  superintendent ;  James 
Cannon,  Jr.,  chairman;  A.  J.  Barton,  Edwin  C. 
Dinwiddle,  legislative  superintendent;  Wayne  B. 
Wheeler,  secretary;  Ernest  C.  Cherrington. 
Legislative  Committee  of  Anti-Saloon  League  of 
America.” 

Mr.  Bryan  was  one  of  the  company  of  sup¬ 
porters  of  this  amendment  who  gathered  in  Wash¬ 
ington  on  the  sixteenth  of  January,  1920,  to  cele¬ 
brate  the  passing  of  the  United  States  from  the 
old  era  to  the  new.  The  leaders  of  the  movement 
unanimously  invited  him  to  occupy  the  place  of 


FOUR  GREAT  REFORMS 


109 


honour  a t  this  meeting  and  make  the  last  speech 
before  the  nation  became  saloonless.  He  began  at 
twenty  minutes  after  eleven  and  talked  until 
twelve,  when  the  audience  rose  and  greeted  this 
great  change  with  the  Doxology.  Mr.  Bryan  re¬ 
served  his  text  until  one  minute  before  twelve  and 
then  announced  it:  “  They  are  dead  that  sought  the 
young  child’s  life — prefacing  the  announcement 
with  the  statement  that,  since  King  Alcohol  had 
slain  a  million  times  as  many  children  as  Herod 
did,  no  more  appropriate  words  could  be  found. 
Mr.  Bryan’s  activity  in  the  cause  of  Prohibition 
covered  a  period  of  about  ten  years,  from  1910  to 
1920  when  the  Constitutional  Amendment  went 
into  effect. 

This  is  the  third  of  the  Constitutional  reforms 
to  which  he  gave  powerful  aid.  When  he  began 
his  attack  upon  the  liquor  traffic  he  allied  himself 
with  a  very  unpopular  group  but  he  lived  to  see 
the  sentiment  grow,  expand,  and  become  victorious. 
His  judgment  as  to  the  desire  of  the  American 
people  was  again  vindicated. 

Those  who  believe  in  the  policy  of  National 
Prohibition — and  they  are  now  a  majority  in 
America — will  rejoice  that  Mr.  Bryan  threw  the 
weight  of  his  vast  influence  into  this  fight  against 
the  saloon  and  in  favour  of  national  morality. 
Those  who  still  favour  the  saloon  and  the  wet 
policy  bitterly  denounce  him  for  the  fight  he  has 
waged  against  the  liquor  interests.  But  there  can 
be  no  question  of  the  final  result  or  the  final  ver¬ 
dict  of  public  opinion  in  America  upon  this  matter 


110 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BKYAN 


nor  of  the  final  effect  of  the  policy  of  national 
prohibition  upon  America  and  the  world.  The 
growing,  swelling  tide  of  sound  public  opinion  fa¬ 
vourable  to  the  policy  of  prohibition  will  yet  en¬ 
circle  the  earth.  The  vindication  that  Mr.  Bryan 
and  the  friends  of  prohibition  are  yet  to  receive 
for  the  achievement  of  this  great  reform  will  be 
difficult  indeed  to  estimate.  Neither  in  the  present 
generation  nor  in  those  immediately  to  follow  will 
we  see  the  full  fruition  of  this  great  advance  in 
national  morality  and  individual  purity.  This  re¬ 
form  is  too  fundamental,  its  effects  strike  too  deep 
into  the  vitals  of  our  public  and  personal  life;  it 
cuts  out  a  cancer  too  deeply  rooted  for  the  full 
measure  of  this  great  advance  to  be  apparent  now. 
Only  in  the  long  sweep  of  the  ages  and  in  the  light 
of  a  new  day;  of  higher  morality,  a  keener  con¬ 
science,  a  higher  conception  of  human  welfare 
upon  the  part  of  all  men,  can  the  peoples  of  the 
world  see  the  full  meaning  of  the  banishment  of 
liquor  from  our  civilization.  The  saloon  is 
doomed.  As  Mr.  Bryan  well  said  in  his  most  re¬ 
cent  utterance  upon  this  matter: 

“  Our  government  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people, 
and  the  people  will  use  the  government  for  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  their  rights  and  for  the  advancement  of 
their  welfare.  Alcohol  as  a  beverage  has  been  in¬ 
dicted  as  a  criminal,  brought  up  to  the  bar  of  judg¬ 
ment,  condemned,  and  executed.  Our  nation  will  be 
saloonless  for  evermore  and  will  lead  the  world  in 
the  great  crusade  which  will  drive  intoxicating  liquor 
from  the  globe.” 


VIII 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 

F'  I  ^  HERE  is  something  epic  about  the  career 
of  Mr.  Bryan  in  American  politics; 

-JL  something  that  defies  analysis  or  defini¬ 
tion.  It  links  us  with  a  distant  past,  an  age  in 
politics  so  remote  (as  political  time  goes)  that  we 
feel  we  are  almost  in  touch  with  Civil  War  days. 

Bryan  was  first  elected  to  Congress  in  early  No¬ 
vember,  1890,  nearly  thirty-three  years  ago.  He 
was  then  thirty  years  old.  At  practically  the  same 
time,  over  in  Wales,  a  young  Welsh  lawyer  was 
being  chosen  for  the  first  time  to  sit  in  the  English 
House  of  Commons.  This  was  Lloyd-George, 
three  years  younger  than  Bryan,  and  destined  to 
stay  in  Parliament  until  he  became  Prime  Minister 
in  the  most  critical  and  fateful  hour  in  English 
history.  Indeed,  the  two  careers  and  the  two  per¬ 
sonalities  have  much  in  common,  in  their  espousal 
of  the  cause  of  the  common  people  and  their  elo¬ 
quence  on  the  stump  and  in  the  tribune. 

When  Bryan  entered  Congress  on  the  first 
Monday  in  December,  1891,  he  began  a  national 
political  career  with  a  group  of  men  scarcely  one 
of  whom  is  now  living  and  only  two  of  whom  are 
still  in  Congress.  Glance  at  the  roll  of  Congress¬ 
men  who  walked  down  the  aisle  of  the  House  and 


112 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


took  the  oath  with  Bryan.  The  House  member¬ 
ship  has  entirely  changed  and  only  two  remain  in 
the  Senate.  Among  them  were  Charles  F.  Crisp, 
the  Speaker,  William  M.  Springer  and  Robert  R. 
Hitt  of  Illinois,  B.  F.  Shively,  W.  D.  Bynum  of 
Indiana,  and  Wm.  S.  Holman,  the  “  Watch  dog 
of  the  Treasury  ”  from  the  same  state;  Jonathan 
P.  Dolliver  and  David  B.  Henderson  of  Iowa, 
Bourke  Cockran  of  New  York,  Richard  P.  Bland 
of  Missouri,  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  of  Massachusetts, 
and  Roger  Q.  Mills  of  Texas,  all  famous  in  their 
day.  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  who  had  been  in  several 
earlier  Congresses,  was  out  that  term,  it  being  one 
of  only  two  times  he  had  ever  failed  of  election. 
Only  Cannon  and  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  remained. 
Cockran  died  during  the  last  session,  while  Lodge 
has  been  in  the  Senate  from  Massachusetts  for 
many  years,  and  Cannon  has  left  the  House. 

Over  in  the  Senate  Chamber  on  the  same  day, 
pointed  out  in  the  cloak  rooms  and  from  the  gal¬ 
leries,  we  find  the  following  leaders  of  an  age  past 
and  gone:  Frye  and  Hale  of  Maine,  George  F. 
Hoar  of  Massachusetts,  Henry  M.  Teller  of  Colo¬ 
rado,  James  K.  Jones  of  Arkansas,  Cushman  K. 
Davis  of  Minnesota,  Frances  E.  Warren  of 
Wyoming,  the  only  surviving  member  at  this  time ; 
George  Q.  Vest  of  Missouri,  Platt  of  New  York, 
Quay  of  Pennsylvania,  John  T.  Morgan  of  Ala¬ 
bama,  Orville  H.  Platt  of  Connecticut,  Wm.  B. 
Allison  of  Iowa,  Shelby  M.  Cullon  of  Illinois,  Dan¬ 
iel  W.  Voorhees  of  Indiana,  John  G.  Carlisle  of 
Kentucky,  Arthur  Pue  Gorman  of  Maryland,  Ed- 


THE  BEY  AN  OP  TO-MORROW 


113 


ward  D.  White  of  Louisiana,  later  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  Aldrich  of  Rhode  Island, 
Daniel  of  Virginia  and  John  Sherman  of  Ohio. 

Benjamin  Harrison  was  President,  and  Grover 
Cleveland,  a  practicing  lawyer  in  New  York  City. 
Theodore  Roosevelt  and  William  H.  Taft  were 
both  in  Washington — Roosevelt  as  Civil  Service 
Commissioner  and  Taft  as  Solicitor-General  of  the 
United  States.  Warren  G.  Harding  was  editing  a 
paper  in  Marion,  Ohio,  Woodrow  Wilson  had  just 
begun  lecturing  on  politics  and  jurisprudence  at 
Princeton  University.  When  Bryan  first  ran  for 
the  Presidency  in  1896,  at  thirty-six  years  of  age 
(just  within  the  Constitutional  limit),  these  men 
held  their  positions  mentioned  here,  save  that 
Cleveland  was  President  and  Roosevelt  Police 
Commissioner  in  New  York.  Will  H.  Hays,  who 
became  Republican  National  Chairman  and,  later, 
a  Cabinet  member,  was  of  high-school  age  in  In¬ 
diana  as  was  James  M.  Cox  out  in  Ohio.  Mark 
Hanna  was  a  capitalist  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  and 
the  then  chairman  of  the  Republican  National 
Committee.  Charles  E.  Hughes  was  a  practicing 
lawyer  in  New  York  City,  and  Elihu  Root  led  the 
New  York  Bar. 

Four  years  in  Congress  and  a  brilliant,  fighting 
speech  full  of  fire  and  forensic  eloquence  at  the 
National  Democratic  convention  at  Chicago  made 
Bryan  the  nominee  of  his  party  for  the  Presidency 
and  projected  a  new  personality  into  national 
politics,  a  personal  force  not  to  be  displaced  during 
the  next  thirty  or  forty  years. 


1U 


WILLI  AM  JENNINGS  BEY  AN 


We  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  deep  significance 
of  the  Chicago  convention  on  the  future  policies 
and  fortunes  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  na¬ 
tion.  It  cut  far  deeper  than  was  then  seen.  Two 
things  have  come  out  of  it;  First,  the  permanent 
alignment  of  the  party  on  the  side  of  the  common 
man  as  against  privilege  and  wealth.  The  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  there  became  a  genuinely  radical 
or  progressive  party,  for  the  first  time  since  the 
days  of  Andrew  Jackson.  This  is  the  normal 
position  of  the  Democratic  party — it  has  no  part 
in  Wall  Street  traditions  or  policies;  it  is  the 
peculiar  champion  of  the  common  people  of 
America,  the  great  middle  and  labouring  classes. 
As  Mr.  Bryan  so  wisely  said  in  an  address  in 
Boston  in  1902:  “  There  is  no  room  in  America 
for  two  aristocratic  parties;  one  aristocratic  party 
is  enough.  The  mission  of  the  Democratic  party 
is  to  serve  the  common  people.” 

In  1912  Governor  Wilson — then  a  Presidential 
candidate — said  at  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  “  The 
Democratic  party  is  free  to  serve  the  people;  and 
Mr.  Bryan  made  it  free.” 

This  is  the  true  and  historic  mission  of  Democ¬ 
racy.  Once  or  twice  it  has  swung  from  this  posi¬ 
tion  when  the  Eastern  wing  of  the  party  dominated 
it  and  named  the  candidate  and  wrote  the  platform 
(and  led  it  to  disastrous  defeat),  but  the  Eastern 
adherents  of  the  party  are  following  a  name  and  a 
tradition  rather  than  a  deep-seated  principle,  unless 
they  follow  in  the  direction  Bryan  and  Wilson  are 
leading.  They  have  little  in  common  with  the 


THE  BEY  AN  OF  TO-MOREOW 


115 


average  Democrat  and  unfortunately  they  do  not 
seek  a  common  view-point.  But  under  the  aggres¬ 
sive  and  advanced  leadership  of  Bryan  in  three 
campaigns  and  through  the  two  terms  of  Woodrow 
Wilson  the  party  was  given  a  definite  set  toward 
doctrines  that  favour  equal  privileges  and  op¬ 
portunities  instead  of  special  privileges,  and  the 
party  resumed  its  normal  course  and  pursued  its 
true  mission. 

The  second  result  of  the  Chicago  Convention 
was  to  give  a  new  leader  to  the  party  in  the  person 
of  Mr.  Bryan  and  his  was  almost  an  undisputed 
leadership  from  1896  to  1916.  The  longevity  of 
Bryan’s  public  career  surprises  us  quite  as  much 
as  his'  political  vitality.  There  is  an  element  of 
humour  in  the  various  obsequies  that  have  been  so 
frequently  held  over  his  political  remains.  Even 
some  of  his  close  friends  have  conceded  his  political 
death  and  mournfully  attended  the  final  cere¬ 
monies.  Vain  illusion!  No  political  leader  dies 
who  stands  in  the  front  of,  instead  of  behind,  the 
political  procession ;  whose  face  is  to  the  future  and 
whose  ideas  are  ahead  of  his  time.  The  only 
political  interments  are  those  of  men  who  have  not 
kept  pace  with  the  thinking  of  the  generation  in 
which  they  lived — men  whom  the  great  procession 
has  passed  and  who  do  not  know  it.  Such  a  man 
buries  himself  and  often  preaches  his  own  funeral 
sermon.  This  helps  to  explain  the  political  vitality 
of  Mr.  Bryan  and  when  we  add  to  this  an  engag¬ 
ing  personality,  a  philosophical  cheerfulness  over 
numerous  defeats  that  would  have  broken  other: 


116 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BBYAN 


men,  sterling  character,  a  supreme  gift  of  elo¬ 
quence  that  is  unequalled  in  the  present  generation 
and  perhaps  not  surpassed  in  any  age  of  the  world, 
we  have  a  combination  that  explains  much  of  the 
Bryan  leadership  that  persists  so  amazingly  and 
with  such  unpleasant  consequences  to  his  political 
enemies. 

The  failure  of  Bryan  to  attain  the  Presidency 
is  classed  with  that  of  Clay  and  Blaine,  and 
there  is  much  in  common  in  the  types  of  men  in¬ 
volved  and  the  campaigns  each  appeared  in  as 
candidates. 

But  two  distinctions  are  worth  noting:  First. 
Clay  did  his  work  as  a  member  of  the  Senate 
except  when  he  was  Secretary  of  State;  he  was  in 
office  during  his  entire  public  career.  This  may  be 
said,  substantially,  of  Blaine.  But  Bryan  was  in 
office  only  four  years  as  a  Member  of  Congress 
and  two  years  and  three  months  as  Secretary  of 
State.  Bryan’s  work  has  been  done  almost  entirely 
as  a  private  citizen,  aided,  of  course,  by  the  pres¬ 
tige  gained  in  three  Presidential  campaigns. 
Secondly,  it  is  historical  fact  that  Clay  and  Blaine 
both  had  the  support  of  the  moneyed  element,  Clay 
always  fighting  with  the  rich  Northern  Protection¬ 
ist  Whigs,  the  manufacturing  element  of  the 
country,  and  Blaine  fighting  for  the  same  interests, 
the  same  protected  manufacturers,  the  hard  money 
element,  the  big  banks  and  the  big  business  of  his 
day,  the  Republican  party  being  the  historic  suc¬ 
cessor  of  the  Whig  party. 

Bryan  had  no  moneyed  interests  behind  him,  no 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


117 


great  journalistic  interests,  and  fought  single- 
handed  the  greatest  combination  of  money  and 
special  interests  probably  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  His  career  proves  that  a  young  man  does 
not  need  great  newspapers  or  money  influence,  in 
order  to  rise  in  the  world,  and  that  is  a  salutary 
lesson  sadly  needed  in  American  politics  just  now. 

Indeed,  when  we  take  the  great  triumvirate  of 
Webster,  Clay,  and  Calhoun,  we  find  that  these  men 
did  their  work  as  public  officials,  holding  high 
office,  while  Mr.  Bryan’s  work  has  been  done  on 
the  stump  and  by  his  pen,  by  the  sole  power  of 
meeting,  talking  with,  and  convincing  his  fellow- 
men  that  his  cause  was  just — the  sole  method  that 
ought  to  be  employed  in  a  democracy,  for  democ¬ 
racy  is  government  by  discussion. 

Here  is  a  career  without  a  parallel  in  American 
politics.  It  began  with  a  Presidential  nomination 
just  within  the  constitutional  age  limit  of  thirty- 
six,  and  has  extended  now  for  nearly  thirty  years, 
in  national  party  leadership  at  all  times  in  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  advanced  reforms  to  aid  the  common  people 
of  the  nation.  It  is  a  purely  progressive  career 
from  the  beginning  to  the  present  time.  More¬ 
over,  and  most  important  of  all,  in  the  career  of  no 
other  American  statesman  has  there  been  so  much 
that  he  advocated  embodied  in  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  land.  No  other  American  political 
leader  has  seen  so  many  of  his  own  ideas  adopted 
in  his  own  time  as  has  Mr.  Bryan. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  discuss  the  possibilities 
before  Mr.  Bryan;  to-morrow  is  a  long  word.  He 


118 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BEYAN 


is  now  sixty-three  and,  apparently,  in  perfect 
health.  On  Memorial  Day,  1894,  when  he  was 
thirty-four  and  a  member  of  Congress,  he  made  a 
speech  at  Arlington.  Secretary  Gresham  and 
President  Cleveland  were  present  and  rode  home 
together  in  a  carriage.  A  third  party  in  the  car¬ 
riage,  reporting  the  conversation  tjiat  took  place, 
quoted  Secretary  Gresham  as  saying  of  Mr.  Bryan, 
“  We  can  be  sure  of  one  thing;  while  he  lives  he 
must  be  reckoned  with  as  a  force  in  American 
politics.” 

The  prediction  has  proven  true  during  the 
twenty-nine  years  that  have  elapsed  since  it  was 
made — is  there  any  reason  why  it  should  fail  dur¬ 
ing  the  years  of  his  life  that  remain?  He  has 
made  three  memorable  campaigns  for  the  Presi¬ 
dency  and  has  played  a  prominent  part  in  three 
national  conventions  at  which  he  was  not  a  candi¬ 
date. 

At  St.  Louis  in  1904  he  returned  to  the  party  the 
commission  that  he  received  in  1896,  in  a  sentence 
which  has  been  quoted  many  times: 

“  Eight  years  ago  a  Democratic  national  conven¬ 
tion  placed  in  my  hand  the  standard  of  the  party  and 
commissioned  me  as  its  candidate.  Four  years  later 
that  commission  was  renewed.  I  come  to-night  to 
this  Democratic  national  convention  to  return  the 
commission.  You  may  dispute  whether  I  have 
fought  a  good  fight,  you  may  dispute  whether  I  have 
finished  my  course,  but  you  cannot  deny  that  I  have 
kept  the  faith. ” 

At  Baltimore  in  1912  he  made  his  greatest 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


119 


parliamentary  fight,  overthrowing  New  York’s  in¬ 
fluence  and  committing  the  party  to  the  progressive 
platform  carried  out  under  President  Wilson. 

Mr.  Bryan  grasped  every  dramatic  and  political 
element  of  significance  in  the  situation  of  this 
memorable  Convention.  Before  leaving  the  closing 
scenes  of  the  turbulent  Republican  Convention  at 
Chicago,  he  wired  every  Democratic  candidate 
for  the  nomination  asking  if  they  favoured  Alton 
B.  Parker  for  temporary  chairman  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  National  Convention,  whose  choice  had  just 
been  announced  by  the  Democratic  National  Com¬ 
mittee?  Bryan  protested  against  the  Parker  choice 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  the  representative  of  the 
Wall  Street  interests,  and  offered  to  join  them  in 
a  protest. 

It  was  a  situation  exactly  to  the  taste  of  the 
practical  politician;  a  situation  in  which  expe¬ 
diency  demanded  evasion  or  acquiescence  in  the 
Parker  choice.  The  politicians  proved  themselves 
unusually  short-sighted  and  they  jumped  at  the 
Bryan  bait.  One  and  all  they  wired,  either  as  can¬ 
didates  or  the  representatives  of  candidates,  that 
they  were  keeping  hands  off;  that  the  choice  lay 
with  the  National  Committee,  that  Parker  had  sup¬ 
ported  Bryan  in  1908,  and  that  they  would  not 
interfere. 

Some  of  the  Wilson  convention  managers  ad¬ 
vised  a  similar  telegram  and  certainly  there  were 
strong  arguments  for  such  a  course.  They  are 
said  to  have  even  suggested  a  rough  draft  of  such 
a  telegram  to  the  New  Jersey  governor.  But  the 


120 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


sage  of  Princeton  was  about  to  show  his  superior¬ 
ity  over  the  mere  politicians.  Wilson  was  too  far¬ 
sighted  for  any  such  performance.  He  chose  prin¬ 
ciple  at  the  risk  of  apparent  disaster,  and  the  ulti¬ 
mate  triumph  vindicated  his  judgment. 

To  his  Convention  managers  gathered  at  his 
home  he  said,  “  The  American  people  expect  more 
of  me  than  that,”  and  seating  himself  on  the  edge 
of  his  bed  with  pad  and  pencil  he  wrote  the  follow¬ 
ing  fateful  words,  in  reply  to  Bryan: 

June  22,  1912. 

Hon.  William  J.  Bryan: 

You  are  quite  right.  The  Baltimore  conven¬ 
tion  is  to  be  a  convention  of  progressives — of  men 
who  are  progressive  in  principle  and  by  conviction. 
It  must,  if  it  is  not  to  be  put  in  a  wrong  light  before 
the  country,  express  its  convictions  in  its  organiza¬ 
tion  and  its  choice  of  the  men  who  are  to  speak  for 
it.  You  are  entirely  within  your  rights  in  doing 
everything  within  your  power  to  bring  that  result 
about. 

No  one  will  doubt  where  my  sympathies  lie,  and 
you  will,  I  am  sure,  find  my  friends  in  the  convention 
and  always  in  the  interest  of  the  people’s  cause.  I 
am  happy  in  the  confidence  that  they  need  no  sug¬ 
gestions  from  me. 

(Signed) 

Woodrow  Wilson. 

The  vote  on  the  fourteenth  ballot  had  been 
reached;  it  showed  Clark  554 l/2y  Wilson  356. 
No  other  candidate  for  a  Democratic  nomination 
for  President  in  a  hundred  years  had  ever  come 
this  near  the  two-thirds  necessary  to  a  nomination 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


121 


without  receiving  it.  The  fateful  hour  had  come. 
The  bosses  were  gleefully  chuckling  over  the  hu¬ 
miliation  of  Bryan,  the  overthrow  of  the  inde¬ 
pendent  progressive  elements  of  Democracy,  and 
over  in  the  woods  at  Oyster  Bay  walked  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  more  deeply  concerned  than  any  one, 
while  one  of  his  sons  is  reported  to  have  told  the 
newspaper  reporters,  “  Pop’s  praying  for  Clark.” 

Again  the  careers  of  Bryan  and  Roosevelt  were 
to  cross  each  other  and  this  time  Bryan  was  to  win. 

We  quote  from  the  official  report  of  the  Con¬ 
vention: 

“Mr.  William  Jennings  Bryan,  of  Nebraska 
(when  his  name  was  called).  Mr.  Chairman. 

The  Presiding  Officer.  For  what  purpose  does 
the  gentleman  from  Nebraska  rise? 

Mr.  Bryan  of  Nebraska.  To  explain  my  vote. 

Several  Delegates.  Regular  order! 

The  Presiding  Officer.  Under  the  rule  nothing 
is  in  order  by  the  calling  of  the  roll.  How  does  the 
gentleman  vote  ? 

Mr.  Bryan  of  Nebraska.  As  long  as  Mr.  Ryan’s 
agent — as  long  as  New  York’s  ninety  votes  are  re¬ 
corded  for  Mr.  Clark,  I  withhold  my  vote  from  him, 
and  cast  it. 

(At  this  point  there  was  a  demonstration.) 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

“  Speaking  for  myself,  and  for  any  of  the  delega¬ 
tion  who  may  decide  to  join  me,  I  shall  withhold  my 
vote  from  Mr.  Clark  as  long  as  New  York’s  vote  is 
recorded  for  him.”  (Applause.)  “And  the  position 
that  I  take  in  regard  to  Mr.  Clark  I  shall  take  as  to 
any  name  that  is  now  or  may  be  before  the  conven¬ 
tion.  I  shall  not  be  a  party  to  the  nomination  of  any 
man,  no  matter  who  he  may  be,  or  from  what  section 


122 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


of  the  country  he  comes,  who  will  not,  when  elected, 
be  absolutely  free  to  carry  out  the  anti-Morgan-Ryan- 
Belmont  resolution,  and  make  his  administration  re¬ 
flect  the  wishes  and  the  hopes  of  those  who  believe  in 
a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people/’  (Applause.) 

The  Clark  tide  was  stayed — the  Wilson  vote  be¬ 
gan  to  rise. 

Mr.  Bryan  triumphed  over  the  bosses  and  re¬ 
actionaries  of  his  party  and  by  his  action  secured 
the  nomination  of  a  progressive  leader  for  Presi¬ 
dent  by  the  progressive  delegates,  thus  making  the 
party  an  instrument  for  social,  political  and  in¬ 
dustrial  justice  in  the  years  to  come. 

At  San  Francisco  in  1920  he  made  a  fight  for 
five  amendments  to  the  platform; 


Dry  Plank:  We  heartily  congratulate  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  on  its  splendid  leadership  in  the  submis¬ 
sion  and  ratification  of  the  Prohibition  amendment 
to  the  Federal  Constitution  and  we  pledge  the  party 
to  the  effective  enforcement  of  the  present  law,  hon¬ 
estly  and  in  good  faith,  without  any  increase  in  the 
alcoholic  content  of  permitted  beverages  and  without 
any  weakening  of  any  other  of  its  provisions. 

National  Bulletin:  We  favour  a  national  Bulle¬ 
tin,  not  a  newspaper,  but  a  Bulletin,  issued  by  the 
Federal  Government,  unde*  the  fair  and  equitable 
control  of  the  two  leading  parties,  such  Bulletin  to 
furnish  information  as  to  the  political  issues  of  the 
campaign,  editorial  space  and  space  for  presentation 
of  claims  of  candidates  proportionately  divided  be¬ 
tween  the  parties. 

Profiteering:  The  Democratic  party  pledges  the 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


123 


nation  to  rid  it  of  the  profiteer  and  to  close  the  door 
against  his  return.  It  will  endeavour  to  eliminate 
all  unnecessary  middlemen  by  the  encouragement  of 
organizations  among  producers  that  will  bring  those 
who  sell  and  those  who  use  nearer  together.  It  will 
enact  and  enforce  laws  that  will  effectively  prevent 
excessive  charges  by  such  middlemen  as  are  neces¬ 
sary.  To  this  end  it  will  demand  legislation  subject¬ 
ing  to  the  penalties  of  the  criminal  law  all  corporate 
officers  and  employees  who  give  or  carry  out  in¬ 
structions  that  result  in  extortion ;  it  will  make  it  un¬ 
lawful  for  any  one  engaged  in  Interstate  Commerce 
to  make  the  sale  of  one  article  dependent  upon  the 
purchase  of  another  article  and  it  will  require  such 
corporation  to  disclose  to  customers  the  difference 
between  cost  price  and  selling  price  or  limit  the 
profit  that  can  be  legally  charged  as  the  rate  of  in¬ 
terest  is  now  limited.  It  will  also  endeavour  to  create 
in  the  several  states  trade  commissions  with  powers 
as  ample  as  those  of  the  federal  trade  commission 
and  to  enact  laws  authorizing  each  local  community 
to  create,  as  needed,  similar  commissions  for  the  in¬ 
vestigation  of  local  charges  of  profiteering. 

Compulsory  Service:  We  are  opposed  to  univer¬ 
sal  compulsory  military  training  in  time  of  peace. 

Treaty  Plank:  The  Democratic  party  demands 
an  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  providing 
for  the  ratification  of  a  treaty  by  a  majority  vote, 
so  that  it  will  be  as  easy  to  end  a  war  as  it  is  to  de¬ 
clare  war.  Planting  ourselves  upon  the  most  funda¬ 
mental  principle  of  popular  government,  namely,  the 
right  of  the  people  to  rule — a  doctrine  in  support  of 
which  we  have  recently  spent  over  twenty-five  billions 
of  dollars  and  for  which  we  have  sacrificed  100,000 
precious  lives — we  favour  an  immediate  reconvening 
of  the  Senate  that  this  principle  may  be  applied  to 
the  treaty  controversy  and  ratification  secured  with 
such  reservations  as  a  majority  of  the  Senators  may 


124 


WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


agree  upon,  reserving  for  the  future  the  making  of 
such  changes  as  we  may  deem  necessary. 

We  favour  the  appointment  by  the  President  with 
the  consent  of  the  Senate  of  delegates  to  represent 
this  nation  in  the  league  until  regularly  chosen  dele¬ 
gates  are  elected  and  qualified. 

We  favour  the  selection  of  the  nation’s  delegates 
in  the  League  of  Nations  by  popular  vote  in  districts 
in  order  that  the  people  may  speak  through  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  their  own  choice  in  the  august  tribunal 
which  will  consider  the  welfare  of  the  world. 

These  delegates  should  be  instructed  not  to  vote 
for  war  without  specific  instructions  from  Congress 
or  from  the  people,  given  by  referendum  vote. 

Our  nation’s  delegates  should  also  be  instructed  to 
insist  upon  the  disarmament  of  the  world  in  order 
that  the  burden  of  militarism  may  be  lifted  from  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  toil  and  the  foundations  of 
an  enduring  peace  laid  in  friendship  and  cooperation. 

Who  doubts  that  the  party  would  have  fared 
better  if  it  had  incorporated  these  planks? 

There  are  many  and  great  problems  before  the 
nation;  Mr.  Bryan  is  identified  with  every  one  of 
them.  James  Bryce  says:  “  In  the  United  States 
there  are  comparatively  few  persons  who  devote 
themselves  to  constant  thinking  about  public  affairs 
and  who  endeavour  to  form  the  opinion  of  the  na¬ 
tion.”  Mr.  Bryan  is  one  of  the  few  who  answers 
this  description;  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  has 
studied  and  discussed  public  questions  and  aided 
in  the  formation  of  public  opinion. 

If  there  is  any  attempt  to  overthrow  prohibition, 
Mr.  Bryan  may  be  relied  upon  to  defend  this 
highest  expression  of  the  nation’s  conscience.  In 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


125 


all  the  efforts  that  our  nation  may  make  for  the 
promotion  of  world  peace  Mr.  Bryan  can  be 
counted  upon  for  assistance. 

In  response  to  a  speech  in  which  a  friend  ex¬ 
pressed  regret  that  he  had  not  been  rewarded  with 
the  Presidency,  Mr.  Bryan  said,  “  My  place  in  his¬ 
tory  will  depend,  not  upon  what  the  people  do  for 
me  but  upon  what  I  do  for  the  people.”  There  is 
a  world  of  meaning  in  this  sentence.  It  expresses 
the  fundamental  idea  of  service  to  humanity  em¬ 
bodied  in  the  language  of  the  Master  when  He  gave 
the  world  a  new  standard  of  greatness:  “Who¬ 
soever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
servant.” 

Mr.  Bryan’s  work  has  been  even  broader  than 
the  political  field.  He  has  lived  in  the  arena  of 
politics,  national  and  international,  but  reserved 
time  for  church  duties  and  religious  addresses. 
His  weekly  Bible  Talks  are  published  in  news¬ 
papers  having  a  circulation  of  about  four  million. 
These  and  his  religious  books  and  lectures  are 
causing  him  to  be  increasingly  known  as  a  De¬ 
fender  of  the  Faith.  Above  and  beyond  all  other 
things,  he  is  a  believer  in  God,  the  Bible,  and 
Christ. 

Mr.  Bryan’s  influence  will  not  end  with  his  life. 
Unless  we  are  greatly  mistaken,  it  will  increase  as 
time  brings  greater  vindication  to  the  principles 
which  he  has  advocated.  We  all  recognize  how 
difficult  it  is  for  a  public  leader  to  be  appreciated 
justly  and  thoroughly  in  his  own  time  and  espe¬ 
cially  when  he  is  in  advance  of  the  time.  The 


126 


VILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 


record  preserved  in  these  pages  of  the  actual  vindi¬ 
cations  his  views  have  received  during  his  own 
lifetime,  the  actual  words  of  his  one-time  oppo¬ 
nents,  the  steady  and  relentless  march  of  events 
which  have  proven  him  right  and  left  his  scoffing 
opponents  in  ridiculous  despair — all  of  this  we 
have  set  down  for  the  present  generation  to  read. 

But  no  man  who  is  in  advance  of  his  time  can 
expect  a  full  vindication  in  his  own  generation  and 
no  wise  advocate  of  reforms  does  expect  it.  It 
is  probably  quite  within  the  truth  that  Mr.  Bryan’s 
ideas  have  become  popular  and  received  a  vindica¬ 
tion  faster  than  he  himself  anticipated.  But  even 
vindication  in  itself  does  not  measure  the  height 
and  depth  of  this  personality  and  this  life.  For 
the  life  is  something  greater  than  the  career,  the 
ideas,  the  principles  that  may  have  been  advocated. 
Only  in  the  ripened  years,  in  the  full  fruition  of 
time,  can  we  measure  this  career.  It  cannot  be 
adequately  done  now.  We  can  only  take  a  partial 
measurement  and  indicate  the  scope  and  direction 
of  the  influence  of  this  life  and  spirit  upon  the 
nation  and  the  race.  It  may  be  long  after  Mr. 
Bryan’s  death  ere  there  come  upon  the  world  the 
peace  he  longed  and  worked  for;  a  nation  calm  in 
its  peace  with  all  other  nations ;  Christ’s  love  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  of  nations,  of  capital  and  labour;  a 
real,  genuine  brotherhood  of  man.  Only  in  gener¬ 
ations  yet  to  come,  maybe,  will  his  peace  treaties 
hold  the  nations  in  chains  of  law  and  order  and 
brotherhood,  bringing  them  to  peace  courts  and 
world  parliaments;  when  war  with  all  its  blood- 


THE  BRYAN  OF  TO-MORROW 


127 


red  horror  will  be  remembered  as  a  hideous  dream 
and  nation  will  be  linked  to  nation  in  the  bonds  of 
love;  when  America  will  confirm  with  unanimous 
voice  her  adherence  to  national  prohibition  and 
political  purity. 

Only  then  will  the  ideas  and  ideals  and  impulses 
of  this  life  which  we  have  studied  here  receive  due 
appreciation  from  the  hearts  of  men.  Thus  it  is 
that  Mr.  Bryan’s  friends  may  regard  without  im¬ 
patience  all  the  passing  storms  of  criticism  and 
foolish  words  and  misunderstanding  often  so  will¬ 
ingly  created  against  him.  Ridicule  and  invective 
are  but  the  passing  breath  of  the  moment’s  storm; 
only  the  truth,  only  the  good  survives  and  abides. 
Webster  reminded  his  hearers  in  the  Senate  in  his 
great  reply  to  Hayne  that  “  the  past,  at  least,  is 
secure.”  With  Mr.  Bryan’s  career  we  may  add 
that  the  future  also  is  secure.  No  matter  how 
deeply  his  life  has  touched  and  influenced  his  own 
generation,  it  is  destined  to  influence  generations 
who  will  never  know  him  in  the  flesh. 

And  this  is  immortality  indeed. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


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Date  Due 

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